Logos et Littera: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Text (Dec 2016)
ON PATTERNS OF INTERSUBJECTIVE COGNITION IN DIDACTIC POETRY
Abstract
The theoretical reception of didactic poetry has displayed two tendencies in the past few decades. Firstly, the emphasis has been on what is taught in the works of art instead of how the teaching process is structured. Therefore rhetorical and philological approaches dominate theory and interpretation. Secondly, the status of didactic poetry as a poetic genre is often questioned despite the fact that its ancient Aristotelian critique has been revised. The aim of the paper is to reconsider both aspects from the viewpoint of cognitive genre theory. I examine what kinds of cognitive patterns organise the teaching process in three texts: in De rerum natura (On Nature) by Titus Lucretius Carus, in A méltóság keserve (The Lament of Dignity) by the Hungarian poet György Bessenyei, and in Die Metamorphose der Pflanzen (The Metamorphosis of Plants) by Johann Wolfgang Goethe. In the demonstration of how the teacher-pupil interaction serves as the basis of the complex didactic process I apply the evolutionary model of teaching behaviour. The main results of the investigation are (i) drawing attention to the indirect adaptations of teaching behaviour (e.g. social tolerance, local enhancement, evaluative feedback) represented in didactic poetry; (ii) demonstrating the importance of poetic imagery in didactic poetry, emphasising the close relation between poetic and didactic configurations; (iii) rethinking the notion of genre as a specific pattern of cognition mediating between particular sociocultural contexts.
