ANTONINA HARBUS. Cognitive Approaches to Old English Poetry.

Abstract

The introductory chapter of this book outlines recent applications of cognitive science to literary studies, with sections on cognitive science itself, cognitive poetics, cognitive cultural studies, conceptual metaphor, the embodied mind, together with a brief overview of how the study proposes to bring these to a reading of Old English poetry. Successive chapters present these differing cognitive theories in greater detail before they are applied to various Old English poems (or sections of them): cognitive theory of metaphor is used to interpret images of the wandering mind in The Wanderer and the mind imaged as enclosure in Soul and Body II (chapter 2); cognitive notions of conceptual blending are applied to The Dream of the Rood, Riddle 43 and part of The Battle of Maldon (chapter 3); ‘Text World Theory’ is brought into relation with Wulf and Eadwacer and sections of Beowulf and Genesis B (chapter 4); ideas of cognition or Theory of Mind are illustrated by reference to The Dream of the Rood, Beowulf and Elene (chapter 5). The final two chapters, conversely, ‘set out to demonstrate the contribution that can be made by Anglo-Saxon Studies … to Cognitive Science itself’ (p. 130): notions of the self and of identity trigger a discussion of The Wife’s Lament and other Old English elegies (chapter 6), and, finally, some recent psychological ideas about the emotions are given a historical context with further discussion of Wulf and Eadwacer and of Beowulf. There is a short conclusion (with paragraphs summing up each of the chapters), an extensive bibliography, and a rather brief index.