In this volume Guillemette Bolens examines the ways in which artists, authors, and readers draw on skills, sensorimotor capacities, and embodied knowledge when creating and experiencing artistic and literary works. In so doing, Bolens offers a new literary perspective on gesture studies and the role of embodied cognition in narrative. At the cutting edge of interdisciplinary inquiries into gesture, style, narratology, cognition, and literature, this work brings together academic expertise in literary studies with a consideration of neuroscientific and cognitive findings. Bolens studies the relevance of kinesic intelligence - our ability to understand the meaning of body movements, postures, gestures, and facial expressions - to the interpretation of literature. Through her discussions of works by John Milton, Jane Austen, Marcel Proust, James Joyce, and major medieval authors, Bolens shows how our experience of creative works draws on forms of cognition that are grounded in our corporeality. This book represents a crucial contribution from a literary scholar to the exciting new field of embodied cognition.
With a foreword by well-known neuroscientist Alain Berthoz, "The Style of Gestures" convincingly makes the case that embodied cognition is essential to the reception, understanding, and enjoyment of art and literature.
- ISBN10 1421405180
- ISBN13 9781421405186
- Publish Date 16 July 2012
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Johns Hopkins University Press
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 248
- Language English
- URL http://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/ecom/MasterServlet/GetItemDetailsHandler?iN=9781421405186&qty=1&viewMode=1&loggedIN=false&JavaScript=y