Complexities of cognition in poetic art: Matthew Arnold's “The Last Word”

Abstract

Abstract The cognitive complexity of Matthew Arnold's poem “The Last Word” has resulted in diverging literary critical evaluations. By applying several cognitive approaches to the poem, I develop a reading that reveals the poem's underlying coherence. I then address the question of how that reading might reflect Arnold's own intentions and motivations in responding to adversaries of his social criticism. In doing so, I hope to present a way of showing how both cognitive approaches to literature and traditional literary expertise complement each other in contributing to our understanding of the complexities of human minding: the integration of sensations, emotions, and conceptual reasoning that constitute the way we experience and interact with each other and the world of which we are a part.