Reading Poems: A Cognitive Approach
There
has been a growing awareness that reading poetry warrants cognitive
processes different from reading prose, and that these differences are
reflected in different eye movements. Corcoran, de Bezenac and Davis
have shown, for example, that “poetic texts did prompt significantly
more regressive eye movements as well as more and longer fixations
compared to prosaic texts”, thus supporting Coleridge’s dictum that
reading poetry is not a linear process (Corcoran, de Bezenac and Davis
2023, 6). However, most studies in the field of reading poetry still
operate with hypotheses that stem from a very general notion of ‘reading
for comprehension’ as a linear process centred on the crude assumption
that a poem is understood when its content or topicality is grasped.
In
this BA seminar we will explore a cognitive reading paradigm that pays
respect to the poem as a work of art. To conceptualize the way that
poems are read, it is helpful to consider the cognitive strategies at
work when viewing visual art. Imagine a person viewing the Mona Lisa
painting at the Louvre. It is very likely that the person will have seen
a reproduction of the painting before: Interacting with art is a form
of repetition rather than a form of first exposure. The person looking
at the painting in the Louvre will thus probably approach the painting
with a set of questions that cannot be reduced to the question ‘what is
the painting about’? The viewer may wish to arrive at a better
understanding of whether the depicted person smiles, smirks or looks
indifferent. But she or he will probably also explore the painting with
an interest in the colour scheme, the background or its frame. Most
people would agree that an engagement with a painting cannot be reduced
to what it depicts or appears to depict. Eye-tracking studies on viewing
behaviour in relation to paintings have found, for example, that the
vanishing point and compositional lines have an effect on fixations
and scan paths (cf. Arthur Crucq 2021; cf. Beelders and Bergh 2020;
cf. Sancarlo, Dare, Arato and Rosenberg 2020). In our seminar, we will
apply these ideas to reading poetry. Generating data with an
eye-tracker, we will be able to scrutinize our reading practices and
infer hypothesis about cognitive processes that address the composition
of a poem, line breaks, caesura, stanzas and its soundscape.
We will discuss meaningful ideas for the Studienleistung in one of the first sessions.
The Prüfungsleistung for this seminar is a term paper.
For the term paper, please consult this padlet:
https://padlet.com/katrinbeckeranglistik/wie-schreibe-ich-eine-wissenschaftliche-hausarbeit-im-fach-a-h28pkxs8pjyedb47
- Dozent/in: Felix Sprang