Cognitive Ecopoetics

Sharon Lattig teaches at the University of Connecticut, USA.

Lattig's deeply learned, patiently unfolded, and surprisingly contrary pursuit of a new environmental theory of lyric, as meticulous as it is broad in its historical scope, asks us (whether or not we agree with her conclusions) to reexamine our own assumptions about perception, language, materiality, thought and feeling, as convoked by the transformative and, to use Lattig's word, respeciating occasion of lyric poetry. This is a strong argument for an embodied poetics and for a language in and of the environment, as well as an admirably careful work of cross-disciplinary scholarship, whose convincing readings bring neuroscience and theories of perception and cognition to the riddle of the lyric's persistence. A brilliant, ambitious and thought-provoking defense of poetry.

• Introduction: The Region of the SongChapter One: Occasional Cries: Prelude to LyricChapter Two: Dwelling with the Possible: Lyric Obscurity and Embedded PerceptionChapter Three: This Is Where the Meanings Are: Lyric Disjunction and Perceptual ShatteringChapter Four: Acts of the Mind: Lyric Action and the Whole of Perception