Evaluation of two cognitive poetics concepts of "figure" and "ground" and their aptitude for studying the interpretation and reading of Hafez' poetry

Document Type : Research Paper

Author

professor in Persian language and literature Shiraz university Iran

10.22099/jba.2024.47958.4428

Abstract

The emergence of the cognitive poetics in recent decades has increased attention to the relation between language and mind intending to focus and examine what happens in the mind when one reads a poetic text. In a part of this theory that shows the importance of the "figure" and "ground" in human perception, it is suggested that in the analysis of human perception of poetry, these two concepts, should be carefully considered because they can show how mental attention of the audience could be attracted and be influenced by it. The present article firstly has tried to gain a correct understanding of the general view of this type of poetics analysis especially in considering the specific definition of "interpretation" and "reading" in cognitive poetics. Then focusing more on the definitions and functions of figure and ground, some examples of them in Hafez's poetry has studied. After that, in order to more objectively evaluating the theoretical efficiency and practical utility of this type of cognitive analysis, it has extracted the main pattern of figure and ground in a random Hafez sonnet. Then following a method based on two concepts of "interpretation" used for micro study and "reading" for macro study in this theory, we have studied other examples in Hafez' Divan. Our study has achieved significant results for the faithful evaluation of Hafez' poetry. These results show that additionally it can be useful for studying other Persian poets too.

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Journal of Poetry Studies (boostan Adab)

Articles in Press, Accepted Manuscript
Available Online from 11 May 2024

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