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Cinematographic reading and catalogues in Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass"
Title
Cinematographic reading and catalogues in Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass".
Creator
Jaramillo, Manuel J., Florida Atlantic University, Sheehan, Thomas
Abstract/Description
Walt Whitman's visual imagination was influenced by paintings, panoramas, and photography. His expansive vision reflects changes in methods of perception. Whitman was also an influence on early filmmakers, like Dziga Vertov. Vertov's "Kino-Eye" theory and Whitman's poetry reflect each other in their attempts to attain a "fresh" perception, to see the world "photogenically." Consequently, there is more than just similitude between Whitman and cinema. In fact, both are meant to be seen....
Show moreWalt Whitman's visual imagination was influenced by paintings, panoramas, and photography. His expansive vision reflects changes in methods of perception. Whitman was also an influence on early filmmakers, like Dziga Vertov. Vertov's "Kino-Eye" theory and Whitman's poetry reflect each other in their attempts to attain a "fresh" perception, to see the world "photogenically." Consequently, there is more than just similitude between Whitman and cinema. In fact, both are meant to be seen. Although the idea of reading Whitman "cinematographically" has been mentioned by some critics, none has suggested how this reading process is to be enacted or understood by the reader. The Reader Response theory of Wolfgang Iser is used to show that the reader, when encountering a text, is involved in a process of ideation, during which mental images are influenced by and derived in part from textual schemata and indeterminacies. The cinematographic reading is, then, highly imaginative, resulting in the creation of a "virtual" text. When examined, it can be shown how Walt Whitman's catalogues intend to carry the reader along in a process of "indirect" ideation during which the structures and images of the catalogues become realized by the reader's imagination.
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Date Issued
2004
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/13182
Subject Headings
Motion pictures and literature, Reader-response criticism, Whitman, Walt,--1819-1892--Criticism and interpretation, Whitman, Walt,--1819-1892--Leaves of Grass, Discourse analysis, Literary
Format
Document (PDF)
Foundations of a Scientific Cognitive Theory for Literary Criticism
Title
Foundations of a Scientific Cognitive Theory for Literary Criticism.
Creator
Bronsted, John C., Augustyn, Prisca, Florida Atlantic University, Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of Languages, Lingustics and Comparative Literature
Abstract/Description
Based on Noam Chomsky’s argument that the faculty of language is primarily a tool of thought whose purpose is to interpret the world, this dissertation argues that reading literature provides a cognitive experience like John Gardner’s “Fictive Dream” that mimics our interpretive experience of the world. Literary experience exploits language as an epistemological faculty that makes aspects of the external world intelligible. Yet the faculty of language is also capable of evoking entirely...
Show moreBased on Noam Chomsky’s argument that the faculty of language is primarily a tool of thought whose purpose is to interpret the world, this dissertation argues that reading literature provides a cognitive experience like John Gardner’s “Fictive Dream” that mimics our interpretive experience of the world. Literary experience exploits language as an epistemological faculty that makes aspects of the external world intelligible. Yet the faculty of language is also capable of evoking entirely mental worlds that do not reflect the mindexternal world. Because the literary experience is entirely mindinternal, even the cultural knowledge we bring into play for its understanding still relies on innate features of language. Thus, during the act of reading, we hold this cultural knowledge in abeyance, allowing the text to structure how we bring it to bear on the experience as a whole. A scientific approach to literature can help uncover principles to further elucidate the literaryepistemological experience. Whereas much literary criticism assumes that a critic’s purpose is to mine a text for its deeper meaning, this dissertation argues for a Cognitive Formalist approach in which criticism serves not simply to explain the experience evoked by any particular text according to linguisticepistemological principles, but also to evaluate the moral implications of that specific textual experience. As a means of demonstrating potential implications of a scientific cognitive approach to literary criticism based on linguisticepistemological understanding, the current study offers sample passages from J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. These passages allow us to offer first approximations of some explanatory principles of the literaryepistemological experience, such as the importance of fictive time and fictional event sequences, which in turn gives us greater insight into how, for example, verb tense and aspect contribute to the evocation of the action of fiction in the reader’s mind. Ultimately, the fictive vantage point constructed by the text allows the reader access to a complex moral framework in which fictive characters are understood to make choices that will in turn set the stage for the reader’s own ethical reception of the text and the experience it offers.
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Date Issued
2017
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00004845, http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00004845
Subject Headings
Tolkien, J. R. R.--(John Ronald Reuel)--1892-1973.--Lord of the rings--Criticism and interpretation., Gardner, John--1933-1982.--On moral fiction--Criticism and interpretation., Criticism., Discourse analysis, Literary., Philosophy of mind in literature., Language and languages--Style--Psychological aspects., Literature--History and criticism--Theory, etc.
Format
Document (PDF)