What can oral poetic traditions teach us about language and the human mind? Oral Poetics has produced insights relevant not only for the study of traditional poetry, but also for our general understanding of language and cognition: formulaic style as a product of rehearsed improvisation, the thematic structuring of traditional narratives, or the poetic use of features from everyday speech, among many others. The cognitive sciences have developed frameworks that are crucial for research on oral poetics, such as construction grammar or conversation analysis. The key for connecting the two disciplines is their common focus on usage and performance. This collection of papers explores how some of the latest research on language and cognition can contribute to advances in oral studies. At the same time, it shows how research on verbal art in its natural, oral medium can lead to new insights in semantics, pragmatics, or multimodal communication. The ultimate goal is to pave the way towards a Cognitive Oral Poetics, a new interdisciplinary field for the study or oral poetry as a window to the mind.

Readers of this book receive an overview of the main perspectives and research of recent decades in the fruitful collaboration between Classics and Cognitive studies. It is intended as a stocktaking of various branches of Classics, such as literary criticism and poetics, linguistics, ancient history and archaeology. Four major research areas or clusters have been chosen for the presentation of the chapters. Chapter one discusses recent studies of 'cognitive' materiality and material agency in relation to the human mind, chapter two the so-called 'spatial turn' and cognition and the perception of space in place in relation to antiquity, chapter three imagination and vision and cognitive approaches to seeing, while chapter four considers experience and experientiality and the 'sensory turn' as applied to ancient sources. Finally, the fifth chapter is a special case and a different medium: it consists of three interviews with three well-known pioneers of the study of emotions in antiquity, David Konstan, Angelos Chaniotis and Douglas Cairns, who in various direct and indirect ways have greatly influenced the interplay and dialogue between classical studies and cognitive approaches in recent decades. This book takes stock of a rapidly developing and highly controversial field that is currently in full bloom.

The Routledge Handbook of Classics and Cognitive Theory is an interdisciplinary volume that examines the application of cognitive theory to the study of the classical world, across several interrelated areas including linguistics, literary theory, social practices, performance, artificial intelligence and archaeology. With contributions from a diverse group of international scholars working in this exciting new area, the volume explores the processes of the mind drawing from research in psychology, philosophy, neuroscience, and anthropology, and interrogates the implications of these new approaches for the study of the ancient world. Topics covered in this wide-ranging collection include: cognitive linguistics applied to Homeric and early Greek texts, Roman cultural semantics, linguistic embodiment in Latin literature, group identities in Greek lyric, cognitive dissonance in historiography, kinesthetic empathy in Sappho, artificial intelligence in Hesiod and Greek drama, the enactivism of Roman statues and memory and art in the Roman Empire. This ground-breaking work is the first to organize the field, allowing both scholars and students access to the methodologies, bibliographies and techniques of the cognitive sciences and how they have been applied to classics.

This handbook brings together 42 contributions by leading narratologists devoted to the study of narrative devices in European literatures from antiquity to the present. Each entry examines the use of a specific narrative device in one or two national literatures across the ages, whether in successive or distant periods of time. Through the analysis of representative texts in a range of European languages, the authors compellingly trace the continuities and evolution of storytelling devices, as well as their culture-specific manifestations. In response to Monika Fludernik’s 2003 call for a "diachronization of narratology," this new handbook complements existing synchronic approaches that tend to be ahistorical in their outlook, and departs from postclassical narratologies that often prioritize thematic and ideological concerns. A new direction in narrative theory, diachronic narratology explores previously overlooked questions, from the evolution of free indirect speech from the Middle Ages to the present, to how changes in narrative sequence encoded the shift from a sacred to a secular worldview in early modern Romance literatures. An invaluable new resource for literary theorists, historians, comparatists, discourse analysts, and linguists.

The Dictionary of the Bible and Ancient Media is a convenient and authoritative reference tool, introducing specific terms and concepts helpful to the study of the Bible and related literature in ancient communications culture. Since the early 1980s, biblical scholars have begun to explore the potentials of interdisciplinary theories of oral tradition, oral performance, personal and collective memory, ancient literacy and scribality, visual culture and ritual. Over time these theories have been combined with considerations of critical and exegetical problems in the study of the Bible, the history of Israel, Christian origins, and rabbinics. The Dictionary of the Bible and Ancient Media responds to the rapid growth of the field by providing a source of reference that offers clear definitions, and in-depth discussions of relevant terms and concepts, and the relationships between them. The volume begins with an overview of 'ancient media studies' and a brief history of research to orient the reader to the field and the broader research context of the book, with individual entries on terms and topics commonly encountered in studies of the Bible in ancient media culture. Each entry defines the term/ concept under consideration, then offers more sustained discussion of the topic, paying particular attention to its relevance for the study of the Bible and related literature

The Orphic Hymns, a collection of invocations to the complete Greek pantheon, have reached us without explicit information about the contexts of their composition and performance. Combining a new critical edition and translation of the hymns with an in-depth study of the poetic strategies they employ and the forms of Greek poetry they draw upon, this book explores what the hymns can tell us about themselves. Through the use of allusion and figures that look to the earliest Greek poetry, the hymns present themselves as a text to be heard and meditated upon in performance, and as Orpheus’ summative revelation on the nature and unity of the divine realm.

Second edition of this popular Handbook bringing together stimulating discussions of core English linguistics topics in a single, authoritative volume—includes numerous new and thoroughly updated chapters The second edition of the popular Handbook of English Linguistics brings together stimulating discussions of the core topics in English linguistics in a single, authoritative volume. Written by an international team of experts, the chapters cover syntax, methodology, phonetics and phonology, lexis and morphology, variation, stylistics, and discourse, and also provide discussions of theoretical and descriptive research in the field. The revised edition includes new and updated chapters on English Corpus Linguistics, experimental approaches, complements and adjuncts, English phonology and morphology, lexicography, and more. In-depth yet accessible chapters introduce key areas of English linguistics, discuss relevant research, and suggest future research directions. An important academic contribution to the field, this book: Presents thirty-two in-depth, yet accessible, chapters that discuss new research findings across the field, written by both established and emerging scholars from around the world Builds upon the very successful first edition, published in 2006 Incorporates new trends in English linguistics, including digital research methods and theoretical advances in all subfields Suggests future research directions The Handbook of English Linguistics, 2nd Edition is an essential reference work for researchers and students working in the field of English language and linguistics.

The book offers a novel approach to the question of how to model narrativity against the background of perspectivization. By bringing together contributions from neuro- and cognitive linguistics, literary studies, and picture theory, the volume uncovers basic mechanisms of perspectivization that are common to the different levels of linguistic structure, literary novels, and narrative pictures. As such, it is also a book on narrative perspectivization since its contributions examine in detail the perspectival principles in medieval, romantic and postmodern literature, in the micro-linguistic structure of language, narrative pictures, literary novels, dramatic texts, and everyday stories. In doing so, it contributes both to the theoretical debate on the core definition of narrativity and offers new empirical investigations on perspectival principles in specific historical, medial, and genre constellations. This volume will be of interest to scholars and students of cognitive linguistics, narrative research and (transmedial) narratology, cognitive poetics, and stylistics.

Encyclopedic in its coverage, this one-of-a-kind reference is ideal for students, scholars, and others who need reliable, up-to-date information on folk and fairy tales, past and present. Folktales and fairy tales have long played an important role in cultures around the world. They pass customs and lore from generation to generation, provide insights into the peoples who created them, and offer inspiration to creative artists working in media that now include television, film, manga, photography, and computer games. This second, expanded edition of an award-winning reference will help students and teachers as well as storytellers, writers, and creative artists delve into this enchanting world and keep pace with its past and its many new facets. Alphabetically organized and global in scope, the work is the only multivolume reference in English to offer encyclopedic coverage of this subject matter. The four-volume collection covers national, cultural, regional, and linguistic traditions from around the world as well as motifs, themes, characters, and tale types. Writers and illustrators are included as are filmmakers and composers—and, of course, the tales themselves. The expert entries within volumes 1 through 3 are based on the latest research and developments while the contents of volume 4 comprises tales and texts. While most books either present readers with tales from certain countries or cultures or with thematic entries, this encyclopedia stands alone in that it does both, making it a truly unique, one-stop resource.

Rev. ed. of: The Princeton encyclopedia of poetry and poetics / Alex Preminger and T.V.F. Brogan, co-editors; Frank J. Warnke, O.B. Hardison, Jr., and Earl Miner, associate editors. 1993.