Cognitive chiasmus: Embodied phenomenology in Dylan Thomas
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Jamin Pelkey
Abstract
Chiasmus has long been discussed as a rhetorical figure for the symmetrical reversal of linguistic structures in oral and written texts. Recent treatments have begun to challenge this parochial status in ways that are reminiscent of the embodied metaphor revolution in cognitive semantics. This paper further develops the argument that chiastic schemas are a rich source of embodied cognition in need of broader recognition and deeper understanding. A cognitive poetic analysis of Dylan Thomas' iconic work “Vision and Prayer” facilitates this discussion. The dialectic weave of inverse structures and corporeal schemas that emerge from the poem illustrate the aesthetic ubiquity of cognitive chiasmus. Its lived, intertwining nature is proposed as an antidote to the “missing body” problem, as a more complex approach to cognitive symmetry and as a primary source of conceptual blending.
©[2013] by Walter de Gruyter Berlin Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Masthead
- Gladstone as linguist
- Anomaly in novel metaphor and experimental tests
- Is corpus stylistics bent on self-improvement? The role of reference corpora 20 years after the advent of semantic prosody
- Cognitive chiasmus: Embodied phenomenology in Dylan Thomas
- The semantics of difficult poems: Deriving a checklist of linguistic phenomena
Articles in the same Issue
- Masthead
- Gladstone as linguist
- Anomaly in novel metaphor and experimental tests
- Is corpus stylistics bent on self-improvement? The role of reference corpora 20 years after the advent of semantic prosody
- Cognitive chiasmus: Embodied phenomenology in Dylan Thomas
- The semantics of difficult poems: Deriving a checklist of linguistic phenomena
