Two styles of mental functioning and literary language: a phenomenological psychological reading of A. Machado and C. Cavafy. A tribute to Zena Helman

Abstract

Following Minkowska's psychological phenomenological approach, a comparative analysis of some poems of Antonio Machado and Constantine Cavafy was carried out. This phenomenological analysis identifies two styles of mental functioning - sensorial and rational. The sensorial style is characterized by adhesiveness - adhesiveness to all that has life, to concrete experience, to surroundings, and to action. The rational style is dominated by abstraction and symbolic thinking, isolation and distance, immobilization and splitting, and less vital contact with reality. A phenomenological comparative analysis of some of Machado and Cavafy poems reveals Machado as a sensorial and impressionistic poet and Cavafy as a poet of isolation and impersonality abstraction.

Keywords

• Antonio Machado
• Constatino Cavafy
• poems
• phenomenological approach