Universität zu Köln

Sperduti, Giulia (2024). “A Basket of Mysteries” A Cognitive Linguistic Analysis of Rita Dove’s reworking of Greek myths. PhD thesis, Universität zu Köln.

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Abstract

This dissertation consists of a cognitive linguistic analysis of two works written by the American poet Rita Dove, the play "The Darker Face of the Earth" and the collection of sonnets "Mother Love". The aim of my work is to analyse, from a cognitive perspective, the creative process involved in the reception and interpretation of ancient Greek myths and their re-adaptation and reinvention in a specific African American context. The linguistic data are elicited from "The Darker Face of the Earth" and "Mother Love" and, in addition, from Dove’s interviews, in which the author is explicit about her use of myth and its relation with the modern and contemporary world. I collected linguistic data through a close reading and a linguistic analysis of Dove’s texts in combination with a linguistic analysis of Greek parallels. My work is situated within the theoretical framework of the cognitive approach to literary studies. Over the last thirty years, scholars in the humanities have integrated insights from the cognitive sciences into their research, demonstrating the productivity of such an approach. Cognitive literary studies is not a unified theory, instead it has come to be understood as a broad “field” with different methodologies, assumptions and committments. My own approach to literary discourse is based on cognitive linguistics. Specifically, I follow the development of Conceptual Metaphor Theory and Turner and Fauconnier’s theory of blending as applied to literature. Through Conceptual Blending Theory (CBT) and Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT), I have given an account of Dove’s works on different levels. In my work, I have concentrated on several areas, from larger to smaller scale levels, such as story-plots, episodes, formation of characters, highly lyrical and compressed metaphorical imagery. I have shown how CBT and CMT can contribute to an understanding of the production of a literary text, while, at the same time, developing a new approach to the study of classical reception. A cognitive linguistic approach to literary discourse, and specifically to Dove’s reception of the classics, is highly productive in unravelling the complexity of literary works that blend different histories and literary traditions, in explaining Dove’s process of mythologising history and historicising myth, and in providing a plausible explanation and interpretation of creative poetic metaphor and imagery.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD thesis)
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID ORCID Put Code Sperduti, Giulia gsperdu1@uni-koeln.de UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED
URN:	urn:nbn:de:hbz:38-732775
Date:	2024
Language:	English
Faculty:	Faculty of Arts and Humanities
Divisions:	Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Zentrale Forschungseinrichtungen > Zentrum für Inter- und Transkulturelle Studien (CITS)
Subjects:	Language, Linguistics
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Keywords Language Cognitive Literary Studies, Conceptual Metaphor Theory, Conceptual Blending Theory, Classical Reception English
Date of oral exam:	20 December 2023
Referee:	Name Academic Title Bonifazi, Anna Prof. Dr. Rauscher, Judith Jun.-Prof. Dr. Harst, Joachim Jun.-Prof.
Refereed:	Yes
URI:	http://kups.ub.uni-koeln.de/id/eprint/73277