Memory, Metaphors, and Meaning: Reading Literary Texts

by Nicolae Babuts

Overview

Literature explores the human condition, the mystery of the world, life and death, as well as our relations with others, and our desires and dreams. It differs from science in its aims and methods, but Babuts shows in other respects that literature has much common ground with science. Both aim for an authentic version of truth. To this end, literature employs metaphors, and it does so in a manner similar to that of scientific inquiry.

The cognitive view does not imply that there is a one-to-one correlation between the world and text, that meaning belongs to the author, or that literature is equivalent to perception. What it does maintain is that meaning is crucially dependent on mnemonic initiatives and that without memory, the world remains meaningless. Nicolae Babuts claims that at the interface with the printed page, readers process texts in a manner similar to the way they explain the visible world: in segments or units of meaning or dynamic patterns.

Babuts argues that humans achieve recognition by integrating stimulus sequences with corresponding patterns that recognize and interpret each segment of a text. Memory produces meaning from these patterns. In harmony with its goals, memory may adopt specific strategies to deal with different stimuli. Dynamic patterns link the unit of processing with the unit of meaning. In sum, Babuts proposes that meaning is achieved through metaphors and narrative, and that both are ways to reach cognitive goals. This original study offers perspectives that will interest cognitive psychologists, as well as those simply interested in the process through which literature stirs the human imagination.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781412845830
Publisher:	Transaction Publishers
Publication date:	11/15/2011
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	246
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Nicolae Babuts is emeritus professor of French at Syracuse University and author of Mimesis in a Cognitive Perspective and Memory, Metaphors, and Meaning, both published by Transaction, as well as other important books and articles.

Table of Contents

Introduction; 1: Literary Dynamic Patterns; 2: The Beginning of Interpretation; 3: Reading Poetry; 4: The Allure of Myth; 5: Beginnings and Endings; 6: Metaphoric Fields: Blaga, Melville, and Leopardi; 7: The Tonality of Metaphoric Fields; 8: Concluding Remarks

Editorial Reviews

In this erudite yet accessible book, Babuts presents an interesting counterargument to the age-old idea that literature simply conveys the 'human condition' and therefore has goals that differ from those of science. . . . In short, readers derive meaning from a literary text by recognizing the metaphors of the narrative. In making this argument, the author helps establish that literature and science provide similar learning and understanding experiences, highly recommended.” —C. R. Bloss, Choice “An invaluable addition to the current research on cognitive approaches to literature . . . Babuts makes a strong case for the study of literature by showing how complex literary texts bear out the discoveries of cognitive psychologists in ways that expand the horizon of meaning. His focus on the mnemonic process of retrieval that differs from one writer to another sets him sharply apart from post-structuralist critics who deny the role of authorial agency in the creation of literary texts . . . Memory, Metaphors, and Meaning abounds in finely textured interpretations.” —Suzanne Nash, Nineteenth-Century French Studies, v. 39: 1-2, p. 172-3.

From the Publisher