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Aesthetic qualities as structural resemblance

Divergence and perceptual forces in poetry
  • Reuven Tsur✝
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Semblance and Signification
Ein Kapitel aus dem Buch Semblance and Signification

Abstract

When we say “The music is sad”, we report that we have detected some resemblance between the structure of the music and the structure of an emotion. In this sense, “sad” refers to an aesthetic quality of the music. In poetry, “sad” may refer either to the mere contents of the poem, or to an aesthetic quality arising from an interplay of divergent structure, low energy level, slow motion, sad contents. The paper explores such questions as “How do systems of music-sounds and verbal signs assume perceptual qualities endemic to other systems, such as human emotions or animal calls?” “What may a critic mean when asserting that a certain metric configuration is ‘more dignified’ than some other; that is, what may ‘dignified’ mean in a context of metric configurations?” The paper is focused on two structural phenomena found in both poems and emotions: “divergence” and “perceptual forces”.

Abstract

When we say “The music is sad”, we report that we have detected some resemblance between the structure of the music and the structure of an emotion. In this sense, “sad” refers to an aesthetic quality of the music. In poetry, “sad” may refer either to the mere contents of the poem, or to an aesthetic quality arising from an interplay of divergent structure, low energy level, slow motion, sad contents. The paper explores such questions as “How do systems of music-sounds and verbal signs assume perceptual qualities endemic to other systems, such as human emotions or animal calls?” “What may a critic mean when asserting that a certain metric configuration is ‘more dignified’ than some other; that is, what may ‘dignified’ mean in a context of metric configurations?” The paper is focused on two structural phenomena found in both poems and emotions: “divergence” and “perceptual forces”.

Kapitel in diesem Buch

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Preface and acknowledgements ix
  4. Introduction xi
  5. Part I. Word forms, word formation, and meaning
  6. Toward a phonosemantic definition of iconic words 3
  7. Iconic thinking and the contact-induced transfer of linguistic material 19
  8. Ezra Pound among the Mawu 39
  9. Cognitive iconic grounding of reduplication in language 55
  10. Imagic iconicity in the Chinese language 83
  11. Words in the mirror 101
  12. Part II. General theoretical approaches
  13. Un mélange genevois 135
  14. How to put art and brain together 149
  15. Image, diagram, and metaphor 157
  16. Part III. Narrative grammatical structures
  17. The farmers sowed seeds and hopes 175
  18. Non-iconic chronology in English narrative texts 191
  19. A burning world of war 211
  20. Part IV. Cognitive poetics
  21. Aesthetic qualities as structural resemblance 233
  22. Mental space mapping in classical Chinese poetry 251
  23. Iconicity in conceptual blending 269
  24. Part V. Acoustic and visual iconicity
  25. Thematized iconicity and iconic devices in the modern novel 291
  26. Iconicity and intermediality in Charles Simic’s Dime-Store Alchemy 313
  27. Words, like shells, are signs as well as things 327
  28. Unveiling creative subplots through the non-traditional application of diagrammatic iconicity 343
  29. Part VI. Intermedial iconicity
  30. The iconic indexicality of photography 355
  31. Unbinding the text 369
  32. Argumentative, iconic, and indexical structures in Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin 389
  33. John Irving’s A Widow for One Year and Tod Williams’ The Door in the Floor as ‘(mult-)i-conic’ works of art 405
  34. Author index 423
  35. Subject index 425
https://doi.org/10.1075/ill.10.13tsu

Kapitel in diesem Buch

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Preface and acknowledgements ix
  4. Introduction xi
  5. Part I. Word forms, word formation, and meaning
  6. Toward a phonosemantic definition of iconic words 3
  7. Iconic thinking and the contact-induced transfer of linguistic material 19
  8. Ezra Pound among the Mawu 39
  9. Cognitive iconic grounding of reduplication in language 55
  10. Imagic iconicity in the Chinese language 83
  11. Words in the mirror 101
  12. Part II. General theoretical approaches
  13. Un mélange genevois 135
  14. How to put art and brain together 149
  15. Image, diagram, and metaphor 157
  16. Part III. Narrative grammatical structures
  17. The farmers sowed seeds and hopes 175
  18. Non-iconic chronology in English narrative texts 191
  19. A burning world of war 211
  20. Part IV. Cognitive poetics
  21. Aesthetic qualities as structural resemblance 233
  22. Mental space mapping in classical Chinese poetry 251
  23. Iconicity in conceptual blending 269
  24. Part V. Acoustic and visual iconicity
  25. Thematized iconicity and iconic devices in the modern novel 291
  26. Iconicity and intermediality in Charles Simic’s Dime-Store Alchemy 313
  27. Words, like shells, are signs as well as things 327
  28. Unveiling creative subplots through the non-traditional application of diagrammatic iconicity 343
  29. Part VI. Intermedial iconicity
  30. The iconic indexicality of photography 355
  31. Unbinding the text 369
  32. Argumentative, iconic, and indexical structures in Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin 389
  33. John Irving’s A Widow for One Year and Tod Williams’ The Door in the Floor as ‘(mult-)i-conic’ works of art 405
  34. Author index 423
  35. Subject index 425
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Heruntergeladen am 28.9.2025 von https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1075/ill.10.13tsu/html
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