Positioned at the intersection of cognitive linguistics and literary poetics, the volume offers a state-of-the-art collection of mostly new contributions and two updated versions of field-defining papers in the newly emerging research paradigm that is alternatively labelled Cognitive Poetics (Tsur 1992; Stockwell 2002; Freeman, in press) or Cognitive Stylistics (Weber 1996, Semino & Culpeper 2002). Following Jonathan Culler's important distinction in literary theory, "Poetics starts with attested meanings or effects and asks how they are achieved", and is opposed to literary Hermeneutics, which seeks "to discover new and better interpretations" for literary texts (Culler 1997: 61). Following up on Culler, Cognitive Poetics formulates and tests specific cognitive-linguistic hypotheses on the processing that underlies literary interpretation and, thus, also "focuses on process, not product" (M. Freeman 2002: 43). Specifically, the cognitive-linguistic hypothesis that language reflects general cognitive structure, (1) allows linguistic analysis to tackle subtle cognitive construal mechanisms underlying stylistic choices and poetic meaning effects and (2) allows poetics to link linguistic resources of literature to hypotheses on general cognitive architecture. In this line of thought, the book integrates insights from various disciplines-cognitive linguistics, poetics, foregrounding theory, cognitive psychology, etc.-in order to yield powerful tools for the analysis of prose and poetry comprehension. In this domain, the following (and other) research questions are addressed: How can Construction Grammar, Frame Semantics & Langackerian subjectivity be related to literary humour? In what way is literary character cognitive? Can poeticity be envisaged as iconicity (feeling-form-meaning blending)? Do specific poetic environments prototypically trigger ironic interpretations? How complex is the cognitive-narrative connection? How can visual-textual cartoon blends support narrative mimesis? Does mental space theory go beyond possible world theory as a phenomenology of literary text worlds? How does nonmetaphorical language create macro-metaphorical effects-in literature and elsewhere? How and when is the poetic effect of "distance" achieved? (Geert Brône & Jeroen Vandaele) Introductory Essay Geert Brône & Jeroen Vandaele Chapters Eleni Antonopoulou Deconstructing humour with construction grammar Line Brandt Mental Spaces and the analysis of literary discourse [exact title pending] Jonathan Culpeper Margaret Freeman Rachel Giora, Ofer Fein, Dana Eisenberg & Shani Erez What kind of context favors irony? David Herman Cognitive narrative analysis Zouhair Maalej Tim Rohrer Elena Semino Text worlds in literature Gerard J. Steen Nonmetaphorical metaphor Reuven Tsur Revised re-publication of the paper "Lakoff's roads not taken" Lieven Vandelanotte & Barbara Dancygier Willie Van Peer