“What is cognitive poetics?” is a difficult question to answer because it means different things to different people. In its narrowest sense, poetics literally refers to the study of poetry. For example, Reuven Tsur’s (1992, 2008) theory of cognitive poetics focuses on ways in which human cognitive processing constrains and shapes both the language and aesthetic form of poetry and readers’ responses to them. In a more general sense poetics (from the Greek term poesis, “making”) refers to the study of all human artefacts, whether material or immaterial. From this perspective, poetics falls within the broader category of aesthetics governing all forms of human cognitive creativity (Freeman 2011). Within this broader definition, further discriminations are made
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Citation: Freeman, Margaret. "Cognitive Poetics". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 09 August 2017 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=19505, accessed 18 April 2024.]
