Following in Jakobson and Lévi-Strauss’ footsteps: A neurocognitive poetics investigation of eye movements during the reading of Baudelaire’s ‘Les Chats’

Abstract


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Following Jakobson and Levi-Strauss famous analysis of Baudelaire’s poem ‘Les Chats’ (‘The Cats’), in the present study we investigated the reading of French poetry from a Neurocognitive Poetics perspective. Our study is exploratory and a first attempt in French, most previous work having been done in either German or English (e.g., Jacobs, 2015a, 2018a, b; Müller et al., 2017; Xue et al., 2019). We varied the presentation mode of the poem Les Chats (verse vs. prose form) and measured the eye movements of our readers to test the hypothesis of an interaction between presentation mode and reading behavior. We specifically focussed on rhyme scheme effects on standard eye movement parameters. Our results replicate those from previous English poetry studies in that there is a specific pattern in poetry reading with longer gaze durations and more rereading in the verse than in the prose format. Moreover, presentation mode also matters for making salient the rhyme scheme. This first study generates interesting hypotheses for further research applying quantitative narrative analysis to French poetry and developing the Neurocognitive Poetics Model of literary reading (NCPM; Jacobs, 2015a) into a cross-linguistic model of poetry reading. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Rhythmic subvocalization: An eye-tracking study on silent poetry reading

“…However, the effect was carried by the poem layout, where verse and line endings coincide (interaction layout by EOV; see figure 11 for gaze durations; SFDs and RPDs show a similar pattern). This finding is partly in line with Fechino et al ( 36 ), who report an interaction verse last word by visual presentation for first fixation and gaze duration ). Moreover, the presence of anomalies ( MRRL_version inconsistent ) increased SFD s and TRT s at verse endings (interaction MRRL_version by EOV ).…”

“…Hence, layout is neither necessary nor sufficient for identifying a MRRL-text as poetry. This is in line with conclusions drawn in Fechino et al’ ( 36 , p. 13).…”

“…In the poem layout, a sense of closure can be induced by the visual 'gestalt' of a stanza/poem. The function of closure account is supported by Fechino et al (2020), who report overall longer first fixation durations, gaze durations and total reading times for rhyme words when presented in verse layout. They also report increased rereading probabilities for rhyme words in the prose layout, indicating that readers have processed the rhyme.…”

“…Furthermore, eye-movement patterns can differ when the same text is presented in poetry or in prose layout. Fechino et al ( 36 ) found overall longer gaze durations and a higher rereading probability in the poetry layout. Our present study has a similar design but different focus, and was completed and submitted before Fechino et al’s study was published.…”

“…Importantly, as suggested by Schrott & Jacobs ( 124 , p. 352), the verse-end position of rhyme is crucial for determining the meter of a line, and at the same time divides a poem into segments. The poem’s line as the salient and fundamental structural unit of verse marks boundaries for readers, in conventional poetry mostly via end-rhymes ( 34 ; 36 ; but see 53 for the genre of prose poetry).…”