FREN 6180 - Poetry and Mind

(crosslisted) COML 6226

Spring. 4 credits. Student option grading.

Conducted in English.

L. Dubreuil.

This interdisciplinary seminar would like to offer new hypotheses on the ways poetry is understood and experienced by a reader’s mind. Our methodology, while non-reductionist, will take into account the current state of cognitive science, and also build on literary theory and philosophy (both “analytic” and “Continental”). Poetry makes use of cognitive structures and paths, of formal repetitions and algorithms-but it also alters and challenges the usual boundaries of thought. Thus, we need to consider both the ordinary and the extraordinary, if we ever want to explain the mental performance of the poetic. A comparative corpus of poems (written in European languages, from Antiquity to the 20th century) will be used throughout the semester. Students from very diverse backgrounds but with an interest in mind and/or language and poetry are welcome.