Beyond text theory: Understanding literary response

Miall, David S.; Kuiken, Don

doi:10.1080/01638539409544873

Cited by 125 publications

(56 citation statements)

References 15 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Peskin found that the more prior knowledge graduate students possessed, the "deeper" and "richer" their interpretations, and the same could be said for the professors in this study. These results also accord with the defamiliarization theory described by Miall and Kuiken (1994), which posits that literary texts complicate, rather than economize, comprehension. Furthermore, the performance of experts in this study was consistent with expert performance more generally.…”

Section: Discussion Of Knowledge and Ignorance Episodessupporting

confidence: 91%

“Generic” and “Specific” Expertise in English: An Expert/Expert Study in Poetry Interpretation and Academic Argument

Warren¹

2011

Cognition and Instruction

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In this study, eight English professors thought aloud as they read four lyric poems and composed a short text proposing a hypothetical talk about them for a professional conference. The study used a crossed design in which participants read a poem in each of the following conditions: familiar to them and close to their professional writing, familiar and far, unfamiliar and close, unfamiliar and far. When reading familiar poems, participants produced longer protocols and more elaborate interpretations. When planning their conference talks, participants produced longer protocols for poems that were far from their professional writing as they struggled to access sufficient background knowledge. Participants attempted to say something "new" about the poems, and they closely monitored the limits of their knowledge. These results suggest that English professors, just like experts in other disciplines, develop both "generic" and "specific" expertise. Implications for expertise research, literature instruction, and academic literary scholars are considered.

show abstract

Section: Discussion Of Knowledge and Ignorance Episodessupporting

confidence: 91%

“Generic” and “Specific” Expertise in English: An Expert/Expert Study in Poetry Interpretation and Academic Argument

Warren¹

2011

Cognition and Instruction

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Sensitivity to phonetic aspects of language style (e.g., assonance, alliteration) arguably has a kinesthetic basis (see Fónagy, 2001) and, hence, is separable from but compatible with the bodily felt sense of the text found in readers' reported engagement with kinesthetic imagery (#16). Also, phonetic metaphors in this example seemed striking or evocative (e.g., "I'm really struck"), suggesting that a time-worn conception of wintry cold has been momentarily unsettled or "defamiliarized," as would be expected from formalist (Eriich, 1980) and neo-formalist (Miall & Kuiken, 1994) theories of response to stylistic devices.…”

Section: Phonetic Metaphorsmentioning

confidence: 88%

Expressive reading: A phenomenological study of readers' experience of Coleridge's The rime of the ancient mariner.

Sikora

Kuiken

Miall

2011

Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

To articulate what constitutes expressive reading, we conducted a phenomenological study of readers' responses to Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. After reading the poem twice during 1 week, each of 40 readers chose five passages that they found striking or evocative and then commented on each one. Numerically aided phenomenological methods [(Kuiken, D., & Miall, D. S. (2001). Numerically aided phenomenology: Procedures for investigating categories of experience. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung/Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 2(1). Retrieved from http:// www.qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/view/976] were used to (a) compare these commentaries, identifying and paraphrasing recurrent meaning expressions (called constituents); (b) create matrices reflective of the profiles of constituents found in each commentary; (c) create clusters of commentaries according to the similarities in their profiles of constituents; and (d) examine each cluster to ascertain their distinctive attributes. Among the six distinct types of commentary identified, one in particular involved (a) metaphoric and quasi-metaphoric engagement with sensory imagery from the poem; (b) progressive transformation of an emergent affective theme; and (c) metaphoric blurring of boundaries between the reader's and narrator's perspectives. This mode of reading, which we call expressive enactment, contrasted with five other types of response: ironic allegoresis, aesthetic feeling, autobiographical assimilation, autobiographical diversion, and nonengagement.

show abstract

“…Cupchik believes that one can't have important thoughts unless they are personally relevant to one's emotional life, and that events in life don't become emotionally relevant unless consequences can be conceived of intellectually. A similar interplay was described by Miall and Kuiken's (1994) treatment of defamiliarization theory, which suggests that readers use their emotional responses to help them comprehend poems. Finally, Kris (1952) felt that art can only be appreciated through a merging of form and content.…”

mentioning

confidence: 78%

Reading, Hearing, and Seeing Poetry Performed

Hilscher

Cupchik

2005

Empirical Studies of the Arts

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The study investigated the differences between reading a poem, listening to a poem, and watching a live poetic performance. Stimulus materials included three poems with positive and three with negative themes written by Michelle Hilscher. The 32 participants, including an equal number of males and females in psychology and literature, completed a General Poetry Questionnaire (GPQ) to indicate their experiences and impressions of poetry coming into the study. Following the presentation of each poem, participants answered 14 5-point scale questions in a Poetry Reception Questionnaire (PRQ) which captured cognitive and emotional nuances of poetry reception, and one open-ended question where the participants wrote freely about the poem's meaning. A factor analysis of the GPQ distinguished primarily between participants' responsiveness to the stylistic features and subject matter of poetry. A factor analysis of the PRQ identified global absorption, interpretive engagement, and narrative representation as the primary activities involved in responses to the six poems. A factor analysis of qualitatively derived meaning categories (MC) contrasted an elaboration of style and metaphor as opposed to subject matter and story line. Analyses of variance showed that respondents preferred to read poetry as compared to hearing, or seeing it performed live. By reading poetry themselves, participants were able to explore and interpret the literary devices in poetry in an independent and creative manner, whereas participants who experienced a live performance seemed constrained in their ability to be actively involved in their experience of poetry and therefore found the poetry less engaging. 47 Ó 2005, Baywood Publishing Co., Inc.

show abstract

Beyond text theory: Understanding literary response

Cited by 125 publications

References 15 publications

“Generic” and “Specific” Expertise in English: An Expert/Expert Study in Poetry Interpretation and Academic Argument

“Generic” and “Specific” Expertise in English: An Expert/Expert Study in Poetry Interpretation and Academic Argument

Expressive reading: A phenomenological study of readers' experience of Coleridge's The rime of the ancient mariner.

Reading, Hearing, and Seeing Poetry Performed

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About