‘Kubla Khan’ – Poetic Structure, Hypnotic Quality and Cognitive Style

A study in mental, vocal and critical performance

Author
Reuven Tsur † | Tel Aviv University
HardboundAvailable
ISBN 9789027223692 | EUR 110.00 | USD 165.00
 
e-Book
ISBN 9789027285270 | EUR 110.00 | USD 165.00
 
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This book endorses Coleridge's statement: "nothing can permanently please which does not contain in itself the reason why it is so". It conceives 'Kubla Khan' as of a hypnotic poem, in which the "obtrusive rhythms" produce a hypnotic, emotionally heightened response, giving false security to the "Platonic Censor", so that our imagination is left free to explore higher levels of uncertainty. Critics intolerant of uncertainty tend to account for the poem's effect by extraneous background information. The book consists of three parts employing different research methods. Part One is speculative, and discusses three aspects of a complex aesthetic event: the verbal structure of 'Kubla Khan', validity in interpretation, and the influence of the critic's decision style on his critical decisions. The other two parts are empirical. Part Two explores reader response to gestalt qualities of rhyme patterns and hypnotic poems in perspective of decision style and professional training. Part Three submits four recordings of the poem by leading British actors to instrumental investigation.
[Human Cognitive Processing, 16] 2006.  xii, 252 pp.
Publishing status: Available
Table of Contents
“[...] this fascinating and intelligent book should appeal to a wider audience than just those interested in cognitive poetics, and although it would not be suitable as textbook, its many insights about the cognition and reading, hearing and performing verse would be of interest and use to any teacher of poetry.”
Cited by

Cited by 9 other publications

Benzon, William
2010. One Candle, a Thousand Points of Light: The Xanadu Meme. SSRN Electronic Journal DOI logo
Gafni, Chen & Reuven Tsur
2015. “Softened” voice quality in poetry reading and listener response. Scientific Study of Literature 5:1  pp. 49 ff. DOI logo
Gavins, Joanna
2007. Review Article: The year's work in stylistics 2006. Language and Literature: International Journal of Stylistics 16:4  pp. 389 ff. DOI logo
Gordon, John
2012. Echo, not quotation: what conversation analysis reveals about classroom responses to heard poetry. Classroom Discourse 3:1  pp. 83 ff. DOI logo
Korthals Altes, Liesbeth
2016. Actes de cadrage, narratologie et herméneutique — à propos de l’indétermination énonciative dans Sujet Angot de Christine Angot. Arborescences :6  pp. 94 ff. DOI logo
Naishtat-Bornstein, Lilach
2023. Coleridge in the Pleasure Dome of Hebrew. European Romantic Review 34:6  pp. 647 ff. DOI logo
Norledge, Jessica
2022. Towards a Poetics of Dystopia. In The Language of Dystopia [Palgrave Studies in Language, Literature and Style, ],  pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
West, David
2010. Texture: A Cognitive Aesthetics of Reading, by Peter Stockwell. Changing English 17:2  pp. 229 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 16 march 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Subjects

Literature & Literary Studies

Germanic literature & literary studies

Main BIC Subject

CF: Linguistics

Main BISAC Subject

LAN009000: LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / General
ONIX Metadata
ONIX 2.1
ONIX 3.0
U.S. Library of Congress Control Number:  2005058865 | Marc record