Reuven Tsur, Toward a Theory of Cognitive Poetics (Second, expanded

and updated edition). Brighton and Portland: Sussex Academic Press,

2008,720 pages; ISBN 978 1 845192556 (hardcover), 978 1 845192566
(paperback).

Reviewed by Margaret H. Freeman (Myrifield Institute for Cognition

and the Arts)

Cognitive Poetics as an emerging field of study is a fairly recent development in

studies of cognition and literature. As such, it has a somewhat complex history.
Reuven Tsur first used the term, he tells us, in 1980, and the first edition of this
book, Toward a Theory of Cognitive Poetics (1992), outlined the beginnings of a
theoretical approach based solidly in a wide range of interdisciplinary fields, in-
cluding Gestalt psychology, Russian Formalism, New Criticism, literary criticism
in general, linguistics, and neuroscience. Meanwhile, a separate strand was de-
veloping in the mid 1990's. Quite unaware at that time of Tsur's use of the term,
I began to use "cognitive poetics" to describe my own interdisciplinary approach
to poetry, which followed Tabakowska's (1993) seminal application of cognitive
linguistics to literature in her book, Cognitive Linguistics and Poetics of Translation,
to which I added theories of aesthetics, phenomenology, and semiotics (Freeman
1998,2007). The theoretical strand arising specifically from conceptual metaphor
studies in Cognitive Linguistics gave rise to Lakoff and Turner's (1989) More than
Cool Reason: A Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor, a cognitive linguistic emphasis
which culminated in Stockwell's (2002) textbook, Cognitive Poetics: An Introduc-
tion, with its companion volume by Gavins and Steen (2003), Cognitive Poetics in
Practice, and a volume in the Applications of Cognitive Linguistics series, edited by
Geert Brone and Jeroen Vandaele, called Cognitive Poetics: Goals, Gains, and Gaps
(Mouton de Gruyter 2009). The Cognitive Linguistics approach has thus tended
to dominate as a description of the term. Meanwhile, more general approaches to
literature from the field of cognitive science (e.g., Spolsky 1993; Hogan 2003) were
developing, along with the ongoing stylistics approaches of the mid-twentieth cen-
tury which took a so-called "cognitive turn" with the rise of cognitive science and
cognitive linguistics (see for example, Semino and Culpeper 2002).
The question arises whether Cognitive Poetics in its current state is a general
movement, a clearly delineated field of study, or, as Tsur's title suggests, a theory.
Given this background, the republication of Toward a Theory of Cognitive Poetics
in an expanded and updated edition is most welcome and timely in the effort to

Pragmatics & Cognition 17:2 (2009), 450-457. DOl 1O.1075/p&C.17.2.12fre

ISSN 0929-0907 I E-ISSN 1569-9943 John Benjamins Publishing Company
 Book Reviews 451

characterize what cognitive poetics is (or might be), and how it is similar to, or
differs from, other cognitive approaches to literature.
This second edition, with just two major exceptions, is a reprinting rather than
an edited and revised version of the first. The exceptions are: 1) expansion of the
section on metre and rhythm as a result of Tsur's later instrumental and empirical
research into poetic performance, with a revised analysis of Keats's poem "Bright
Star:' a new chapter on "Delivery Style and Listener Response - An Empirical
Study:' and new material in what is now Chapter 8, "Expressiveness and Musical-
ity of Speech Sounds"; and 2) addition of three chapters in a new final section that
places Tsur's definitional work in cognitive poetics against the cognitive linguistic
focus of George Lakoff, Peter Stockwell, and Eve Sweetser.
Tsur's work, though complex and hard to digest, is exemplary in the breadth
and depth of its research. By focusing on the ways in which research in the cog-
nitive sciences can contribute to the study of literature, Tsur's approach not only
allows for but demands consideration of literary critical approaches in helping
to distinguish artistic expressions from everyday discourse. Whereas cognitive
science research in general focuses on features common to all human cognition,
cognitive poetics focuses on ways in which human cognitive processing constrains
and shapes both poetic language and form, and readers' responses to them. In this
review, I focus on three issues arising from this second edition: 1) how well Tsur's
arguments and analyses have stood up against subsequent literary cognitive sci-
ence research; 2) what distinguishes Tsur's theory of cognitive poetics from other
cognitive approaches to literature; and 3) what contribution Tsur's theory makes
to the development of future cognitive poetics research.
Tsur's work stands historically at the juncture between the establishment of
Chomskian linguistics as a classical theory and the emergence of cognitive lin-
guistics as a major challenge to it. Many linguists in the Chomskian tradition will
therefore find familiar Tsur's discussions of semantic features and markedness
(Chapter 9), even as he introduces the cognitive notions of scripts and schemas.
His work on poetic rhythm and metre, also reflected in this volume (Chapters
5-8), stems from Halle and Keyser's (1966) metrical theory at the same time that
it goes far beyond it, especially in its exploration of rhythmic pattern and the way
performance can accommodate the tensions arising from metrical deviation.
Research into the cognitive sciences and cognitive approaches to literature are
both still in very early stages of development, so that what appear to be new for-
mulations in one area often can be found, with slightly different terminology and
perception, already existing in the other. The literal-figurative distinction is a case
in point: Tsur is quite correct to point out that, like figurative language, "literal lan-
guage too is riddled with inferences, implied expectations confirmed or refuted,
contradictions and conditions in which meanings are or are not cancelled" (p. 586).
452 Book Reviews

The fact that we do perceive a difference in literal versus figurative language can-
not therefore lie in this distinction (cf. Coulson and Lewandowska -Tomaszczyk
2005). Many of Tsur's pronouncements can be found to be quite consistent with,
and in some cases to anticipate, findings in the cognitive sciences. One example
is his refinement (following the literary critics' Wellek and Warren 1956 formula-
tion) of the form-content distinction that has proven to be a problematic assump-
tion in semiotics (see, for example, Freeman 2008). Another is his broadening of
the term "meaning" beyond the referential, reflected in Mark Johnson's latest work
(2007). On the other hand, new perspectives in the cognitive sciences can radi-
cally change assumptions in literary theory. The presupposition (accepted by Tsur)
that aesthetic purposes arose from and are ancillary to cognitive and linguistic
processes that evolved for human survival is being challenged by the recognition
that the aesthetics of creative imagination is a necessary (not contingent) prereq-
uisite for the emergence of those same cognitive and linguistic processes (Johnson
2007; Turner 1996, 2006). Tsur's rather outdated references to work in psychol-
ogy, literary criticism, and cognitive linguistics is not necessarily a limitation in
this study - many valuable discoveries have been made in the past (pace certain
modern claims notwithstanding) - but it does mean that Tsur's work does not
reflect more recent theoretical discussions. For example, his analysis of the emo-
tions from the point of view of appraisal theory does not include recent challenges
to that theory and consideration of other possible approaches (Frijda, Manstead,
and Bern 2000). It is not clear to me that one has to reject Lakoff's (1993) Embod-
ied Mind Theory to accept Beardsley's (1958) Controversion Theory as possible
approaches to a literary text; both to my mind are mutually compatible. Although
Tsur himself makes reference to the possible similarities between Feature Cancel-
lation Theory and Fauconnier and Turner's refinements of conceptual metaphor
in their Conceptual Integration (Blending) Theory, he does not explore the conse-
quences of the latter's more cognitive approach. Feature cancellation is a charac-
teristic of linguistic semantics; selected projection of structure a cognitive process.
The latter has advantages in allowing for consideration of how the emotions may
trigger the selective process (Deacon 2006), and therefore in the end may provide
a more comprehensive account of poetic affect. A major contribution of Tsur's
book is thus the way in which it allows for ongoing debates and raises issues that
are central both to understanding human cognitive processing in general and po-
etic expressivity in particular.
In justifying his approach against other cognitive linguists like Stockwell and
Lakoff, Tsur's considers, on the one hand, what makes Cognitive Poetics "cogni-
tive" and, on the other, what makes it "poetics:' He takes issue with Peter Stockwell
over the question of how cognitive Stockwell's approach is. Unlike Tsur's poetics,
as exemplified in the rich and detailed analyses of the cognitive processing that
 Book Reviews 453

is involved in the structure and appreciation of the literariness of a poetic text,

Stockwell, in his chapter on deixis, merely identifies the types of deictic shifts that
occur in a sampling of literary texts (Stockwell 2002). This is no more cognitive,
Tsur claims, than E.M. Forster's (1962) precognitive views of shifting points of
view in Dickens' Bleak House. The difference lies in what counts as "a cognitive ex-
planation:' The answer, I think, for Tsur, from his discussion of Stockwell's chapter
and his own approach as outlined in this volume, lies in the kind of questions one
asks, and the ways in which one actually explores the cognitive processes at work
in experiencing a literary text. I use the word experience advisedly. One major
difference between Stockwell's approach to literature and Tsur's (among others)
is whether the focus is on interpretation or experience. Stockwell's methodology
cannot distinguish between deictic shifts in ordinary discourse and their use in lit-
erature' whereas focus on the underlying cognitive processes that enable deixis (or
point of view for that matter) to occur can, as David Miall's research has shown,
provide a means for identifying how such indicators "function differently in a lit-
erary text" (Mia1l2006: 174). The criterion for a Cognitive Poetics, it seems to me,
is not to show that nothing "lies outside cognitive poetics" (Stockwell 2008: 589),
but how effective the utilization of conceptual apparatus is in illuminating the
qualities of a poetic text.
While Tsur takes issue with Stockwell over what is cognitive, he takes issue
with Lakoff over what constitutes poetics. His main criticism of Lakoff's work on
conceptual metaphor theory is its lack of explanatory power in characterizing the
effects and affects of poetry. The difference is one of focus: whereas Lakoff is in-
terested in exploring the basic metaphorical schemas fundamental to all human
cognition, Tsur is interested in what differentiates the poetic text from ordinary
discourse.
Tsur's assumption that "literature does have important operational principles
that cannot be exhausted in terms of cognitive science" (p.3) is perhaps the cru-
cial difference that Tsur sees as defining the parameters of a Cognitive Poetics. It
leads him to make a functional distinction between what he considers traditional
literary critical approaches and cognitive ones, reserving the latter for only those
occasions "when [hel encounter[sl some issue that cannot be handled in more
traditional terms" and sees no reason to "naturalize them in the cognitive com-
munity" (p. 599). By refusing to do so, however, Tsur, it seems to me, cannot then
justify his claim that there are operational principles in literature that fall outside
the boundaries of cognitive science. Beardsley's Controversion Theory is no less
cognitive than Lakoff's Embodied Mind Theory. One can agree with Tsur that his
efficient coding hypothesis, in identifying "the amount of information coded in ...
various spatial images;' provides "[slubtler and more flexible intertextual or intra-
textual distinctions ... of greater aesthetic significance" (p.583) in understanding
454 Book Reviews

poetic language than the body-mind hypothesis, but this is surely rather a case of
which cognitive tools are better adapted for a specific purpose than an example of
an operational principle that is restricted to literature alone.
That leads me to the final consideration for this review: what contribution
Tsur's theory makes to the development of future cognitive poetics research. Cru-
cial to Tsur's theory is the distinction between literary texts perceived as witty as
against those that produce a more emotive effect. His argument is complex, but in-
cludes a distinction between convergent style, characterized by strong, articulated,
and stable shapes, and a divergent style that is more diffuse in expressing undif-
ferentiated gestalts. These are linked, respectively, to high and low categorization,
which enable either rapid or delayed conceptualization, and, in metaphor, to split
and integrated focus. These cognitive processes shape and constrain language at
every level: semantic, phonological, syntactic, and prosodic. Literary styles can be
identified by the extent to which they converge or diverge from high versus low
categorization, as can critical styles adopted by readers' preferences for either rapid
or delayed conceptualization. Tsur's preferences become clear in his detailed expo-
sitions: delayed conceptualization, with its propensity for open-ended possibili-
ties, is his preferred strategy for appreciating the aesthetics of a literary text. This
appears to be the basis on which he criticizes cognitive linguistic approaches that
tend, his inference seems to be, to prefer the strategy of rapid conceptualization.
Throughout the volume, Tsur uses a revealing term when he claims that his
theories, unlike others within cognitive linguistics, are "tailor-made" in account-
ing for the aesthetic qualities of a literary text. The term implies that the theory is
designed to "fit" the phenomenon under examination, and I think that this indeed
does represent Tsur's more literary-oriented approach. That is, Tsur starts with the
aesthetic object, and then develops a suitable theory from what we know about hu-
man cognitive processing in order to account for its effects. In other words, Tsur's
methodology is in the broad sense scientific: developing a theory to explain the
data. Cognitive linguistic research does the same thing, but its focus is on general
human cognitive activities and not on literature per se. What this means in prac-
tice is that cognitive linguists tend to approach literature from the standpoint of
a cognitive theory and show how the theory illuminates the literature, instead of
starting with the literature and seeing what cognitive theory best accounts for its
aesthetic effects. Although, as Brone and Vandaele (2009: 25) note in commenting
on the relations between Cognitive Linguistics and Poetics, that "each field yields a
different conception of cognitive poetics, according to its own needs:' nevertheless
the growing amount of work that crosses the boundaries of the two interdisciplines
allows for the possibilities of productive development in both areas of research.
I find it appropriate, therefore, that Tsur concludes his second edition with a
discussion of one of the best examples of a cognitive approach to literature: Eve
 Book Reviews 455

Sweetser's article on Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac, with its focus on the play's ver-
sification strategies (Sweetser 2006). Tsur says:
... "blending theory" fails to account for the rhymes' verbal structure or perceived
effect, and directs attention away from the verbal structures to the contents. This
led Sweetser to a brilliant comprehensive interpretation of the play, relating versi-
fication patterns to relatively large chunks of contents. In some of my recent pubJi-
cations, I introduced the notion of "relative fine-grainedness" in critical discourse.
Sweetser's discussion makes important observations on the play's structure. The
critical tools introduced here [i.e. in this volume] allow the critic to fill it in with
reference to more fine-grained texture. This is one of the great achievements of
Cognitive Poetics as I conceive of it. (637)

Tsur's "more fine-grained texture" refers, then, not to the contents of a literary text,
but to its aesthetic qualities, not to (conceptual) interpretation but to (affective)
experience. Both are complementary, not oppositional, but Tsur's theory has the
advantage of revealing not what poetry (or the arts in general for that matter) has
in common with other human cognitive activities, but what makes it different. It
is this focus that I think is needed for any further work that lays claim to falling
within the field of Cognitive Poetics.
One final note. As I said at the beginning, Tsur's work is complex and hard to
digest. This, I believe, is the main reason his work has not been so influential in the
developing field of cognitive poetics as it could or should have been. I recommend
that readers of this second edition learn from my experience, and try not to read it
as a linear narrative. Close and repeated readings of the theoretical stances taken
throughout the chapters with respect to various literary phenomena, whether se-
mantic, prosodic, or critical-evaluative, will enable Tsur's theories to emerge more
clearly and thus reward the reader with a fuller understanding and greater appre-
ciation of the nature and function of Cognitive Poetics. The reader will find the
effort worthwhile in ensuring the future development of what can truly be labeled
"cognitive poetics':

References

Beardsley, M.e. 1958. Aesthetics: Problems in the Philosophy of Criticism. New York and Burl-
ingame: Harcourt, Brace and World.
Br6ne, G. and Vandaele, J. (eds). 2009. Cognitive Poetics: Goals, Gains, and Gaps. Applications of
Cognitive Linguistics. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Coulson, S. and Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk, B. 2005. The Literal and Nonliteral in Language and
Thought. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.
Deacon, T. 2006. "The aesthetic faculty". In M. Turner (ed), The Artful Mind: Cognitive Science
and the Riddle of Human Creativity. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 21-53.
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Forster, E.M. 1962. Aspects of the Novel. Harmondsworth: Penguin.

Freeman, M.H. 1998. "Poetry and the scope of metaphor: Toward a theory of cognitive poet-
ics': In A. Barcelona (ed), Metaphor & Metonymy at the Crossroads. The Hague: Mouton de
Gruyter,253-281.
Freeman, M.H. 2007. "Poetic iconicity". In W. Chlopicki, A. Pawelec, and A. Pojoska (eds), Cog-
nition in Language: Volume in Honour of Professor El:ibieta Tabakowska. Krakow: Tertium,
472-501.
Freeman, M.H. 2008. "Revisitinglrevisioning the icon through metaphor': Poetics Today 29(2):
353-370.
Frijda, H.N., Manstead, A.S.R., and Bern, S. (eds). 2000. Emotions and Beliefs: How Feelings In-
fluence Thoughts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Gavins, 1. and Steen, G. (eds). 2003. Cognitive Poetics in Practice. London and New York: Rout-
ledge.
Halle, M. and Keyser, S.J. 1966. "Chaucer and the study of prosody': College English 28: 187-
219.
Hogan, p.e. 2003. Cognitive Science, Literature, and the Arts. New York: Routledge.
Johnson, M. 2007. The Meaning of the Body: Aesthetics of Human Understanding. Chicago and
London: The University of Chicago Press.
Lakoff, G. 1993. "The contemporary theory of metaphor': In A. Ortony (ed), Metaphor and
Thought. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 202-251.
Lakoff, G, and Turner, M. 1989. More than Cool Reason: A Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor. Chi-
cago and London: The University of Chicago Press.
Miall, D.S. 2006. Literary Reading: Empirical and Theoretical Studies. New York: Peter Lang.
Semino, E. and Culpeper, J. 2002. Cognitive Stylistics: Language and Cognition in Text Analysis.
Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Spolsky, E. 1993. Gaps in Nature: Literary Interpretation and the Modular Mind. Albany: State
University of New York Press.
Stockwell, P. 2002. Cognitive Poetics: An Introduction. New York and London: Routledge.
Stockwell, p. 2008. "Cartographies of cognitive poetics". Pragmatics & Cognition 16(3): 587-
598.
Sweetser, E. 2006. "Whose rhyme is whose reason?: Sound and sense in Cyrano de Bergerac".
Language and Literature 15(1): 29-54.
Tabakowska, E. 1993. Cognitive LingUistics and Poetics of Translation. Tiibingen: Gunter Narr
Verlag.
Tsur, R. 1992. Toward a Theory of Cognitive Poetics. Amsterdam: North Holland.
Turner, M. 1996. The Literary Mind. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.
Turner, M. (ed). 2006. The Artful Mind: Cognitive Science and the Riddle of Human Creativity.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Wellek, R. and Warren, A. 1956. Theory of Literature. New York: Harcourt, Brace.
 Book Reviews 457

Author's address
Margaret H. Freeman
Myrifield Institute for Cognition and the Arts
23 Avery Brook Road
Heath, MA 01346-0132
freemamh@lavc.edu
https://sites.google.com/a/case.edu/myrifield/
http://myrifield.wordpress.com/

About the author

Margaret H. Freeman is Emeritus Professor of English at Los Angeles Valley College and a
co-director of the Myrifield Institute for Cognition and the Arts in Heath, Massachusetts. She
moderates COGUT, an internet discussion list for people interested in cognitive lingUistic ap-
proaches to literature (http://www.ucs.louisiana.edu/-cxr1086/coglitl). Her research interests
are in the field of cognitive poetics, with a particular focus on poetic iconicity. She has pub-
lished articles on cognitive approaches to poetry in several journals and anthologies (http://
www.emilydickinson.org/edis/scholars/freeman.htm) and is working on a book-length study
on poetic iconicity and a cognitive guide to reading the poetry of Emily Dickinson.