Cognitive Literary Studies, Historicism, and the History of the Imagination

Abstract

AbstractFor the past two decades, the scholarly discussion about the merits of neuroscience and cognitive science for literary studies has been, in Germany at least, a rather heated affair. This debate, however, has been much less interdisciplinary than the subject matter would suggest and has mainly taken placeThe need to historicise this relationship is part of a more encompassing claim. I believe it is necessary to focus on theory not as something external to, but as a self-reflexive aspect of, literature itself. This implies the need to investigate the mind and cognition only if it is part of the literary work’s self-reflexive scope within a given historical context. Historically, this reflexion presupposes a network in which scientific theories of the mind play a key role. My main example is the imagination. In this context, I will also focus on the rejection of dualism, or rather: the way that René Descartes’s philosophy, especially his distinction betweenOne key problem within CLS has been the focus on theThis historicist approach to cognition as a self-reflexive aspect of literature, on the one hand, and a reflection on science, on the other, necessarily implies a rejection of any universalising approach to literary works of art. The theoretical historicism proposed in this paper presupposes a turn towards the time-bound and the particular, and respective conceptualisations of authorship, literary production, and the text itself. In order to make my point, I will focus on one key concept and cognitive faculty in the history of the humanities: the creative imagination. A historical approach to the imagination in the light of cognitive science – such as championed by Alan Richardson and Mark J. Bruhn in the field of Romantic Studies – thus serves as my starting point. To make my argument, I will focus on three historically crucial phases as they are periods of transition both within literary history and the history of science: the early seventeenth century as the beginning of the scientific revolution, the Romantic period as a second scientific revolution, and literary Modernism as the formative phase of our contemporary scientific worldview. All three literary examples – Shakespeare, Coleridge, Joyce – can and must be seen as paradigmatic of their age as well as instrumental in bringing about literary change. At the same time, these examples will serve as flashlights to highlight a general trend.