The concept of emotionality in cognitive poetics (R. Tsur)
This article examines the theory of R. Tsur, who is considered to be one of the founders of 'cognitive poetics' or 'cognitive literary studies'. This interdisciplinary field draws on findings from the cognitive sciences to analyse literary texts, particularly poetry. Emerging from cognitive linguistics, cognitive poetics also draws on findings from psychology and the natural sciences whilst remaining within the realm of philosophy. Consequently, cognitive poetics has become an interdisciplinary methodological approach. In his research, R. Tsur draws on findings from cognitive and Gestalt psychology, seeking to answer the question he has posed: how can a poetic text convey emotional states as well as describe them? He discusses brain activity when reading a poem in an attempt to explain how the text's structure can model and convey emotions. According to Tsur, conceptual (categorical and logical) information is processed differently from pre-conceptual (emotional and aesthetic) information. This assertion forms the basis of his theory of poetry. In this article, we conclude that although some of the data on brain activity used by Tsur is now outdated, his passion for cognitive poetics means it continues to exist as a research project to which many other researchers have already contributed.
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