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A Cognitive Poetics of Kinaesthesia in Wordsworth A Cognitive Poetics of Kinaesthesia in Wordsworth Wenjuan Yuan School of English Thesis submitted to the University of Nottingham for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy January 2013 ABSTRACT This project is an effort to explore the kinetic aspects of Wordsworth's works on the one hand and scale up cognitive grammar (Langacker, 2008; Talmy, 2000a, 2000b) to literary discourse on the other hand, both of which stand as relatively underdeveloped areas in a cognitive approach to literature. Specifically, I focus on the kinetic and kinaesthetic notions of motion, force and energy expounded in cognitive grammar, mainly, fictive motion, force dynamics and energy chains, addressing issues not only related to kinetic representation in literary texts but also its possible effects upon readers. With the English Romantic poet Wordsworth as the case study, I conduct detailed cognitive poetic analyses of selected poems, mainly informed by some cognitive grammatical constructs, to reveal the 'invisible' meaning of the text (Langacker, 1993). I outline a cognitive aesthetics of motion by drawing on findings from cognitive science, cognitive grammar and aesthetic theory. Based on this account, I conduct a systematic examination of the fictive motion and fictive stationariness in Wordsworth's works as regards their literary representation and poetic effects. Particularly this reveals how Wordsworth instils fictivity, dynamicity and subjectivity in the literary representation of nature. I relate this manner of describing nature to the picturesque tradition, which is closely associated with a static representation of nature originating in the eighteenth century. I present my analysis as evidence of Wordsworth's attempt to transcend this tradition. With respect to force, I link the notions of force dynamics, texture and poetic tension (Tate, 1948), arguing that force dynamics on the one hand constitutes one important dimension of texture and on the other hand is the conceptual core of poetic tension. I then apply the force-dynamic model to demonstrate how a force-dynamic view could illuminate the differing texture of two poems by Wordsworth. My analysis of the two poems helps account for their differing conceptual complexity and also their contrasting popularity among literary critics. In the case of energy, I draw on Langacker's action chain model, which proposes an energy flow across clauses. I scale the model up to the discourse level and then develop an energetic reading of Wordsworth, examining how energy is represented in another two poems by Wordsworth. This thesis sets out to be a significant work in both cognitive poetics and critical studies of Wordsworth. In the field of cognitive poetics, it is a timely response to redress the imbalance between a majority of macro-level analyses and a minority of close stylistic analyses, and to answer a growing call for returning the focus back to the textuality and texture of the text. The frameworks I have drawn on are not limited to the appreciation of Wordsworth or nature poetry; they can be fruitfully applied to other poets and other types of poetry. Key words: action chain, Cognitive Grammar, cognitive poetics, fictive motion, force dynamics, kinaesthesia, stylistics, William Wordsworth 2 Parts of the thesis have been presented at conferences or published in conference proceedings From Chapter 4: Fictive motion and stationariness in William Wordsworth Yuan, W. (2011). Fictive dynamicism and staticism in Wordsworth, Paper presented at Stylistics across disciplines conference, University of Leiden, The Netherlands, 16th -17th June. From Chapter 6: A cognitive poetics of energy in Wordsworth Yuan, W. (2011). Flow of energy in poetry, Paper presented at Cognitive Poetics Workshop, University of British Columbia, Canada, 30th March. Yuan, W. (2010). Beyond the sentence: When Cognitive Grammar meets poetry, e­ Proceeding of PALA (Poetics and Linguistics Association): The Language of Landscapes, University of Genoa, Italy, 21st -25th July http://www.pala.ac.uklresources/proceedings/20 10/yuan20 1O.pdf 3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I am indebted to my supervisor Peter Stockwell for his unfailing encouragement, constant inspiration and critical comment. He has set a great example of a professional scholar for me, who shows great passion for knowledge and who is ready to explore the unchartered land in research. I would like to thank my fellow stylisticians David Peplow and Eirini Panagiotidou for their generous help, Isabelle van der Born for our discussion and friendship. Particular thanks go to Chloe Harrison, Eric Rundquist and Marcello Giovanelli who read an early draft of my thesis and made many valuable comments. My thanks extend to my office-mates, colleagues and friends. I am grateful to Anne Li-E Liu, Chenjing You, Eric Yen-liang Lin, Hilde van Zeeland, Jib Wipapan, Klaudia Lee, Letty Chan, Pawel Szudarski, Yaxiao Cui for the fun that we had in parties and, at times, our half-joking complaint that how 'boring' a PhD life is and in all, for making the pursuit of the doctoral research a shared experience. I am also grateful to Fangfang Zhu, Haowen Ruan, Huanlai Xing for their unceasing emotional support. I would also like to take the opportunity to thank the China Scholarship Council / The University of Nottingham Joint Scholarship. Without this financial support, I could not start this three-year journey in the first place. This thesis was only made possible by the support of my family: my father Jianwei Yuan, my mother Huafang Zhao and my late grandmother Jibin Yin. Special thanks go to my boyfriend Hao Fu, who gives me unconditional support and love, who lends a most patient and passionate ear to my chatter about poetry, and without whom this PhD journey would not be so wonderful. 4 A Cognitive Poetics of Kinaesthesia in Wordsworth TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTAACT ...................................................................................................................... 1 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................ 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................................................................................ 5 LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................................................... 8 LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................................................ 8 CI'IAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................... 9 1.1 What is kinaesthesia? ........................................................................................... 9 1.2 Why kinaesthesia? .............................................................................................. 12 1.2.1 Kinaesthesia as one dimension of texture ................................................ 12 1.2.2 Kinaesthesia as one important dimension of texture ................................ 17 1.3 Why Wordsworth? .............................................................................................. 24 1.4 Aims of the study ............................................................................................... 27 1.5 Structure of the thesis ......................................................................................... 33 CHAPTER 2 COGNITIVE GAAMMAR AND ITS APPLICATION TO LITEAATURE ................................................................................ 37 2.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................ 37 2.2 Cognitive poetics: an overview .......................................................................... 38 2.3 Cognitive Grammar and its application to literature .......................................... 42 2.3.1 Cognitive Grammar: an introduction ....................................................... 42 2.3.1.1 Major claims ................................................................................... 42 2.3.1.2 The centrality of meaning: 'invisible' semantic constructs ............ 49 2.3.2 Rationale and challenges of using Cognitive Grammar ........................... 54 2.3.3 Previous applications of Cognitive Grammar to literature ...................... 59 2.4 Review ............................................................................................................... 61 CHAPTER 3 A COGNITIVE AESTHETICS OF MOTION IN WORDSWORTII ............................................................................. 63 3.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................ 63 3.2 A cognitive aesthetics of motion ........................................................................ 64 3.2.1 The sense of movement ............................................................................ 64 3.2.1.1 'Dynamic' prepositions and the sense of movement ...................... 66 3.2.1.2 Attentional shift and the sense of movement ................................. 67 3.2.1.3 Fictive motion and the sense of movement .................................... 70 3.2.2 The aesthetics of motion .......................................................................... 71 3.3 The Stolen Boat episode ..................................................................................... 78 3.3.1 Previous critical studies ........................................................................... · 78 3.3.2 A sense of dynamicity
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