Joanna Gavins – författare

What is the literary absurd? What are its key textual features? How can it be analysed? How do different readers respond to absurdist literature?Taking the theories and methodologies of stylistics as its underlying analytical framework, Reading the Absurd tackles each of these questions. Selected key works in English literature are examined in depth to reveal significant aspects of absurd style. Its analytical approach combines stylistic inquiry with a cognitive perspective on language, literature and reading which sheds new light on the human experience of literary reading.By exploring the literary absurd as a linguistic and experiential phenomena, while at the same time reflecting upon its essential historical and cultural situation, Joanna Gavins brings a new perspective to the absurd aesthetic.

What is the literary absurd? What are its key textual features? How can it be analysed? How do different readers respond to absurdist literature?Taking the theories and methodologies of stylistics as its underlying analytical framework, Reading the Absurd tackles each of these questions. Selected key works in English literature are examined in depth to reveal significant aspects of absurd style. Its analytical approach combines stylistic inquiry with a cognitive perspective on language, literature and reading which sheds new light on the human experience of literary reading.By exploring the literary absurd as a linguistic and experiential phenomena, while at the same time reflecting upon its essential historical and cultural situation, Joanna Gavins brings a new perspective to the absurd aesthetic.

Cognitive Poetics is a new way of thinking about literature, involving the application of cognitive linguistics and psychology to literary texts. This student-friendly book provides a set of case studies to help students understand the theory and master the practice of cognitive poetics in analysis.Written by a range of well-known scholars from a variety of disciplines and countries, Cognitive Poetics in Practice offers students a unique insight into this exciting subject. In each chapter, contributors present a practical application of the methods and techniques of cognitive poetics, to a range of texts, from Wilfred Owen to Roald Dahl. The editors'' general introduction provides an overview of the field, and each chapter begins with an editors'' introduction to set the chapter in context. Specifically designed sections suggesting further activities for students are also provided at the end of each case study. Cognitive Poetics in Practice can be used on its own or as a companion volume to Peter Stockwell''s Cognitive Poetics: An Introduction.This book is critical reading for students on courses in cognitive poetics, stylistics and literary linguistics and will be of interest to all those involved in literary studies, critical theory and linguistics.

Cognitive Poetics is a new way of thinking about literature, involving the application of cognitive linguistics and psychology to literary texts. This student-friendly book provides a set of case studies to help students understand the theory and master the practice of cognitive poetics in analysis.Written by a range of well-known scholars from a variety of disciplines and countries, Cognitive Poetics in Practice offers students a unique insight into this exciting subject. In each chapter, contributors present a practical application of the methods and techniques of cognitive poetics, to a range of texts, from Wilfred Owen to Roald Dahl. The editors'' general introduction provides an overview of the field, and each chapter begins with an editors'' introduction to set the chapter in context. Specifically designed sections suggesting further activities for students are also provided at the end of each case study. Cognitive Poetics in Practice can be used on its own or as a companion volume to Peter Stockwell''s Cognitive Poetics: An Introduction.This book is critical reading for students on courses in cognitive poetics, stylistics and literary linguistics and will be of interest to all those involved in literary studies, critical theory and linguistics.

Joanna Gavins presents some of the newest and most influential ideas in cognitive psychology and cognitive linguistics through clearly explained, practical analyses of the work of some of the most popular and celebrated poets currently writing in the British Isles. Through analysis of works by Jo Bell, Simon Armitage, Sinead Morrissey, John Burnside, Alice Oswald and Kate Tempest she demonstrates the practical use of cognitive frameworks as a means of understanding poetry and its effects. Gavins examines cutting edge concepts in cognition including world-building, conceptual integration, embodiment, and distributed cognition and develops our understanding of key notions in poetics such as poetic metre, performance, metaphor and intertextuality. Each chapter of the book addresses a central poetic notion or feature of poetic style from an innovative cognitive perspective, shedding new light on established ideas about poetic creativity and language.