The ocean of surging emotion
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Anastasia Kostetskaya
Abstract
This article explores how Symbolist cognitive poetics governs links between the form of the poem and the visual and non-visual imagery pertaining to spiritual transcendence. It investigates how this experience is iconically represented via the blending of human and water ontologies in the poem “Feather Grass” (1895) by the Russian Symbolist poet Konstantin Bal'mont. The emergent structure of this blend, observed throughout Bal'mont’s poetry, points to flux and permeability of the human emotional terrain, including emotional memory. The blend consistently maps the transition from the earthly to the spiritual as a continuous fluid transmutation or liquescence (Kostetskaya 2015: 413). It facilitates the dissolution of various boundaries and the removal of the central Symbolist duality of realia (concrete reality) versus realiora (the true reality of the innermost and supra-material spheres). The liquescence of emotional fabric manifests itself across various features of the poem, such as prosody, rhyme, sound pattern and repetition. The structure of the poem blends various liquescent topologies in order to render non-representational sensations associated with the evocation of emotional memory: it is circular, reminiscent of rings formed on a water surface when a stone is thrown in; simultaneously, it is vertical representing the dynamics of sinking and rising; it also evokes the idea of water as a prototypical mirror.
Abstract
This article explores how Symbolist cognitive poetics governs links between the form of the poem and the visual and non-visual imagery pertaining to spiritual transcendence. It investigates how this experience is iconically represented via the blending of human and water ontologies in the poem “Feather Grass” (1895) by the Russian Symbolist poet Konstantin Bal'mont. The emergent structure of this blend, observed throughout Bal'mont’s poetry, points to flux and permeability of the human emotional terrain, including emotional memory. The blend consistently maps the transition from the earthly to the spiritual as a continuous fluid transmutation or liquescence (Kostetskaya 2015: 413). It facilitates the dissolution of various boundaries and the removal of the central Symbolist duality of realia (concrete reality) versus realiora (the true reality of the innermost and supra-material spheres). The liquescence of emotional fabric manifests itself across various features of the poem, such as prosody, rhyme, sound pattern and repetition. The structure of the poem blends various liquescent topologies in order to render non-representational sensations associated with the evocation of emotional memory: it is circular, reminiscent of rings formed on a water surface when a stone is thrown in; simultaneously, it is vertical representing the dynamics of sinking and rising; it also evokes the idea of water as a prototypical mirror.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents vii
- Preface ix
- Introduction xi
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Part I. Phonic dimensions
- The effect of iconicity flash blindness 3
- Iconic treadmill hypothesis 15
- Tracking linguistic primitives 39
- Continuity and change 63
- Iconicity in English literary neologisms 85
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Part II. Cognitive dimensions
- Toward a theory of poetic iconicity 99
- The ocean of surging emotion 119
- Ekphrasis, cognition, and iconicity 135
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Part III. Multimodal dimensions
- Deleuze and the Baroque diagram 153
- Bridging the gap between image and metaphor through cross-modal iconicity 167
- Iconicity, ‘intersemiotic translation’ and the sonnet in the visual poetry of Avelino De Araújo 191
- Reading across the gutter 209
- The role of iconicity in package design 229
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Part IV. Performative dimensions
- Iconicity in Buddhist language and literature 249
- Iconization of sociolinguistic variables 263
- Performative iconicity 287
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Part V. New dimensions of iconicity
- Why notational iconicity is a form of operational iconicity 303
- Iconicity, ambiguity, interpretability 321
- The iconicity of literary analysis 331
- Author index 345
- Subject index 347
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents vii
- Preface ix
- Introduction xi
-
Part I. Phonic dimensions
- The effect of iconicity flash blindness 3
- Iconic treadmill hypothesis 15
- Tracking linguistic primitives 39
- Continuity and change 63
- Iconicity in English literary neologisms 85
-
Part II. Cognitive dimensions
- Toward a theory of poetic iconicity 99
- The ocean of surging emotion 119
- Ekphrasis, cognition, and iconicity 135
-
Part III. Multimodal dimensions
- Deleuze and the Baroque diagram 153
- Bridging the gap between image and metaphor through cross-modal iconicity 167
- Iconicity, ‘intersemiotic translation’ and the sonnet in the visual poetry of Avelino De Araújo 191
- Reading across the gutter 209
- The role of iconicity in package design 229
-
Part IV. Performative dimensions
- Iconicity in Buddhist language and literature 249
- Iconization of sociolinguistic variables 263
- Performative iconicity 287
-
Part V. New dimensions of iconicity
- Why notational iconicity is a form of operational iconicity 303
- Iconicity, ambiguity, interpretability 321
- The iconicity of literary analysis 331
- Author index 345
- Subject index 347
