
Feeling-Thinking or Embodied Cognition in the Poetry of Rozalie Hirs and Anne Carson
Helena Van Praet(Author)
Bloomsbury Academic (Publisher)
Will be published approx. on 3. September 2026
Book
Hardback
304 pages
979-8-216-39636-9 (ISBN)
Description
A stimulating cross-disciplinary study of how poetry taps into an embodied cognition at its various levels of signification.
Feeling-Thinking or Embodied Cognition in the Poetry of Rozalie Hirs and Anne Carson asks: How can we feel-think in poetry and what are the effects of this embodied cognition for the resulting poetic epistemology? Combining a new materialist approach with insights from psychology, philosophy, and cognitive science, Helena Van Praet argues that such poetry is not only about felt knowledge but that it also invites readers to feel-think on a formal, sensory-material, and discursive level.
Using a comparative corpus focused on the contemporary writing of Dutch poet Rozalie Hirs and Canadian poet Anne Carson, this study uses experimental strategies such as situated conceptualizations, word streams, poetic metalepsis, networked configurations, screen thinking, and discursive cues to explore how knowledge and meaning are bodily mediated in poetry. It demonstrates that meaning is not just propositional but rather something that you do with your entire body and that poetry is the prime genre to show such an embodied cognition at work.
While earlier accounts tend to be limited to the physicality of the mind or mainly focus on either feeling or thinking, this book develops a full-bodied theory of embodied cognition in poetry. Through close readings, Feeling-Thinking shows how poetry can offer us alternative conceptions of knowledge that transcend purely rational accounts, inviting us to find joy in such cognitive creation.
Feeling-Thinking or Embodied Cognition in the Poetry of Rozalie Hirs and Anne Carson asks: How can we feel-think in poetry and what are the effects of this embodied cognition for the resulting poetic epistemology? Combining a new materialist approach with insights from psychology, philosophy, and cognitive science, Helena Van Praet argues that such poetry is not only about felt knowledge but that it also invites readers to feel-think on a formal, sensory-material, and discursive level.
Using a comparative corpus focused on the contemporary writing of Dutch poet Rozalie Hirs and Canadian poet Anne Carson, this study uses experimental strategies such as situated conceptualizations, word streams, poetic metalepsis, networked configurations, screen thinking, and discursive cues to explore how knowledge and meaning are bodily mediated in poetry. It demonstrates that meaning is not just propositional but rather something that you do with your entire body and that poetry is the prime genre to show such an embodied cognition at work.
While earlier accounts tend to be limited to the physicality of the mind or mainly focus on either feeling or thinking, this book develops a full-bodied theory of embodied cognition in poetry. Through close readings, Feeling-Thinking shows how poetry can offer us alternative conceptions of knowledge that transcend purely rational accounts, inviting us to find joy in such cognitive creation.
Reviews / Votes
This is a detailed study of two significant poets that explores the interface between cognitive poetics and embodied cognition in both the reading and writing process. The book centres on what poetry thinks and knows within the current debate around knowledge worlds. Highly recommended. * Duncan MacKay, Honorary Senior Research Fellow, University of Kent, UK *More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Publishing group
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Target group
Professional and scholarly
College/higher education
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
With dust jacket
Illustrations
9 bw illus
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 25 mm
Weight
454 gr
ISBN-13
979-8-216-39636-9 (9798216396369)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Helena Van Praet is an FWO Junior Postdoctoral Fellow in Dutch and Comparative Literature at Ghent University, Belgium, and co-editor of Anne Carson and the Unknown (forthcoming). Her work has been published in journals such as Textual Practice and Poetics Today.
Content
List of Figures
Acknowledgements
Note on Translations
List of Translations
List of Abbreviations
Introduction: Reaching for 'Something Else than the Facts'
1. Embodiment as Formal Reading Process
2. Embodiment as Sensory Reading Process
3. Embodiment as Somatic Reading Process
Conclusion: Embodied Knowledge Worlds
Works Cited
Index
Acknowledgements
Note on Translations
List of Translations
List of Abbreviations
Introduction: Reaching for 'Something Else than the Facts'
1. Embodiment as Formal Reading Process
2. Embodiment as Sensory Reading Process
3. Embodiment as Somatic Reading Process
Conclusion: Embodied Knowledge Worlds
Works Cited
Index