Cognitive Poetics and Cultural Memory: Russian Literary Mnemonics

by Gronas; Mikhail

• ISBN13: 9780415997379
• ISBN10: 0415997372
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-10-06
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

In this volume, Gronas addresses the full range of psychological, social, and historical issues that bear on the mnemonic existence of modern literary works, particularly Russian literature. While the first half of the book focuses on the mnemonic processes involved in literary creativity, and the question of how our memories of past reading experiences shape the ways in which we react to literary works, the second half of the book examines the concrete mnemonic qualities of poetry, as well as the social uses to which poetry memorization has historically been put to use. Scholars of cognitive poetics, Russian literature, and cultural studies are sure to find this volume appealing.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Mnemonic Writing

Just what word did MandelG++shtam forget?

The tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon and poetic creativity

Why did Nabokov dislike Dostoevsky?

Mnemonic styles in novelistic narration

Mnemonic Reading

What poems did Aleksandr Pushkin know by heart?

A mnemonic view of intertextuality

What do Amazon.com readers remember of the Russian classics?

The mnemonics of the reading process

Memorable Speech

What makes a line memorable?

A case study in literary memetics

What makes a poem memorable?

A mnemonic view of the literary canon Postscript: Why did free verse catch on in the West, but not in Russia?

Poetry memorization in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Russia

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