Scientific Study of Literature - Volume 8, Issue 1, 2018

Articulation of an interactive model of literariness calls for separate specification of (a) a text’s perceptible mode of representation, (b) a reader’s mode of engagement with a text so perceived, and (c) the generative (e.g., creative, expressive) effects of the interaction between this mode of representation and mode of reader engagement. We present a model that identifies two aspects of metaphoric textual representation: structured sequences of nominal metaphors and quasi-metaphoric structures with optional metaphoric construal. This model also distinguishes two modes of reader engagement: expressive enactment and integrative comprehension (Kuiken & Douglas, 2017). The generativity of literary reading is located especially within the interplay between expressive enactment and sequences of metaphoric (and quasi-metaphoric) modes of representation. Evidence suggests that readers reporting expressive enactment also report inexpressible realizations and a temporal progression leading through epistemic tensions that comprise “living metaphor” (Ricoeur, 1981). Thus the generativity – and aesthetic effects – of literary reading are found within the departures from conventionality that comprise the emergent meanings of complex metaphoric structures.

This paper presents series of historiometric studies that exemplify the value of “citation analysis” as an empirical approach to professional literary-critical interpretation, especially with respect to the question of the “literariness” of literary texts. Specifically, the studies show that professional interpreters of Wordsworth’s poetry, across more than a century of time and despite widely varying critical approaches, tend to pay more attention to and therefore more frequently cite lines that involve prospective enjambments. Lines involving nominative noun phrase and retrospective enjambments, however, did not reveal the same correlation with frequency of citation. The studies thus suggest that literariness does indeed have a relatively stable textual component that may be discriminated through citation analysis of professional interpretations of individual literary texts by authors writing in distinct genres of literature and in different periods in literary history.

This study utilizes texts which sit between the literary and non-literary to explore the outcomes and mechanisms of literariness. Literariness can be activated by (a) linguistic foregrounding and (b) paratextual specification. In a 2 × 2 design, manipulated versions of two soldier narratives were produced (poetry/fiction; poetry/fact; prose/fiction; prose/poetry). 215 participants were randomly assigned to read one of the textual versions and respond to rating scales dealing with perception of textual features, empathy, sympathy, and cognitive perspective-taking. The results show that poetic form elicits significantly higher ratings for empathy and sympathy and that paratextual information specifying that a text is factual elicits significantly higher ratings for empathy and cognitive perspective-taking. Two structural equation models were defined: (a) a literariness model and (b) a factual accuracy model. The results suggest an additive dual model of processing in which both poetic form and factual definition contribute to outcomes characteristic of literariness. These results offer some support for the hypotheses of the Neuro-Cognitive Poetics Model proposed by (Jacobs, 2011).

Metaphors occur frequently in literary texts. Deliberate Metaphor Theory (DMT; e.g., Steen, 2017) proposes that metaphors that serve a communicative function as metaphor are radically different from metaphors that do not have this function. We investigated differences in processing between deliberate and non-deliberate metaphors, compared to non-metaphorical words in literary reading. Using the Deliberate Metaphor Identification Procedure (Reijnierse et al., 2018), we identified metaphors in two literary stories. Then, eye-tracking was used to investigate participants’ (N = 72) reading behavior. Deliberate metaphors were read slower than non-deliberate metaphors, and both metaphor types were read slower than non-metaphorical words. Differences were controlled for several psycholinguistic variables. Differences in reading behavior were related to individual differences in reading experience and absorption and appreciation of the story. These results are in line with predictions from DMT and underline the importance of distinguishing between metaphor types in the experimental study of literary reading.

This perspective paper discusses four general desiderata of current computational stylistics and (neuro-)cognitive poetics concerning the development of (a) appropriate databases/training corpora, (b) advanced qualitative-quantitative narrative analysis (Q2NA) and machine learning tools for feature extraction, (c) ecologically valid literary test materials, and (d) open-access reader-response data banks. In six explorative computational stylistics studies, it introduces a number of tools that provide QNA indices of the foregrounding potential at the sublexical, lexical, inter- and supralexical levels for poems by Shakespeare, Blake, or Dickens. These concern lexical diversity and aesthetic potential, sentiment analysis, sublexical sonority scores or phrase structure, and topics analysis. The results illustrate the complex interplay of stylistic features and the necessity for theoretical guidance and interdisciplinary cooperation in selecting adequate training corpora, QNA tools, test texts, and response measures.