2. Unfortunately, separating rhetoric from poetics ignores the fact that âfrom Plato
to Paul de Man, rhetoric and poetics have been intertwinedâ (Preminger, 1986:
230) and the fact that âthe two arts remain all but inextricableâ (Brogan, 1994:
257) given rhetoricâs âwell nigh inseparable link with poeticsâ (Verdonk, 1999:
294).
Isolating rhetoric from poetics makes about as much sense as isolating
literature from rhetoric. After all, literature is a form of rhetoric, as the term
âargumentâ (Cuddon, 1991: 60) implies. Literary critics often use argument, for
example, to refer to what a poem would persuade us to imagine, think, or
believe. In doing so, the assumption that literature is rhetoric becomes explicit
rather than implicit. If literature is rhetoric, and if figurative language is the
rhetoric of poetry, then a rhetoric grounded in cognitive linguistic theories of
figurative language might be termed a cognitive rhetoric of poetry. While the
connections between rhetoric and cognition motivated scholars like Sperber
(1975) to coin the term âcognitive rhetoricâ, the term is perhaps more widely
understood as the research program Turner proposed in his book, Reading Minds
(1991). From there, âcognitive rhetoricâ found its way into handbooks, such as
the seventh edition of the Glossary of Literary Terms (Abrams, 1999: 269), but
this does not mean the term is clearly understood. While a phrase like âcognitive
rhetoriciansâ (Carroll, 1999: 159; Turner, 2002: 9) might suggest a large group of
scholars are working overtly within this area, not everyone appreciates the term.
Stockwell, for instance, calls cognitive rhetoric an âuglyâ and ârepulsiveâ term yet
simultaneously admits that terms like âcognitive hermeneuticsâ or âcognitive
rhetoricâ may be âmore rightâ as an âalternativeâ to âcognitive poeticsâ or
âcognitive stylisticsâ (Stockwell, 2004). For his part, Hall (2003: 353) refers to
âcognitive poetics / stylistics / rhetoricâ in a way that suggests these terms might
simply be interchangeable. To be clear, Sperber saw cognitive rhetoric as a first
step towards the development of what would become known as Relevance
Theory (Sperber and Wilson, 1986) in pragmatics. But Turner, whose definition I
adhere to here, took cognitive rhetoric to refer to âcase studies explaining
individual works and elucidating in the process three levels on which cognitive
studies form the ground of criticismâ (Turner, 1991: 239). Those levels were the
level of âlocal phrasingâ, the level of the âwhole literary workâ, and âthe level at
which we conceive of literature generallyâ (1991: 240â5).
In this sense, cognitive rhetoric can be useful to examine figures and texts in
particular, and literature in general. That is why, if critics think of literature as
rhetoric, cognitive rhetoric can be thought of as a means of studying literature,
which classical rhetoricians classified as epideictic rhetoric. Culler, for his part,
would probably agree with Turnerâs proposals because, as Culler has stated,
âPoetry is related to rhetoric: it is language that makes abundant use of figures of
speech and language that aims to be powerfully persuasiveâ (1997: 71). Culler
refrains from saying âpoetry is rhetoricâ, but he nevertheless defines poetry in
terms of rhetoric, figurative language, and persuasion. Therefore, it seems fitting
to study the rhetoric of poetry by studying first and foremost the persuasive and
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3. figurative language of poetry, especially since early modern rhetorical
stylisticians rarely âdecoupledâ figures âfrom persuasive languageâ (Fahnestock,
2005). Today, thanks to the rise of cognitive linguistics, a rhetoric of poetry can
thus be thought of as a cognitive rhetoric of poetry, especially if we agree that
âMeanings are [. . .] in peopleâs minds, not in words on the pageâ (Lakoff and
Turner, 1989: 109).
As Auden famously put it in The Sea and the Mirror, âEverything, in short,
suggests Mindâ. Granted, it might seem tautological to claim that the study of
literature, language, poetics, rhetoric, and stylistics is really the study of the mind
for it then becomes difficult to say what the study of the mind is not. While this
article is not the place to take up that question, I simply want to suggest that
cognitive rhetoric is an apt label for examining those mental processes for the
achievement of meaning that are better known as analogy, simile, and metaphor.
As Collins (1991) argued, it is impossible to do poetics without doing
hermeneutics because the generalizations of poetics can only be made through
references to specific texts. The same is true of cognitive rhetoric, which is why,
for the remainder of this article, I want to focus on simile, metaphor and analogy
in three poems by Dickinson â F372, F598 and F1381, as numbered in the
Franklin edition (Dickinson, 1999).
As to why my article is limited to Dickinson, I can offer three explanations.
First, as Stonum, a Dickinson scholar, has written, âIt is a common claim in
contemporary criticism that figurality is crucial to literary language and that it is
also the feature which most fully resists codification and certaintyâ (1990: 51).
Although I agree that âfigurality is crucial to literary languageâ, I hope to
demonstrate in this article that figures do not always resist critical codification
because arriving at a sound understanding of the way they work is possible
within that discursive genre known as literary criticism. Second, in writing about
Dickinson, Anderson states: âPoetic language in mid-nineteenth century America
had been reduced to a relatively flat and nerveless state, but he furnished her
[Dickinson] with the clues for its [poetic languageâs] resurrectionâ (Anderson,
1963: 145). If Anderson is right, then literary history testifies to the importance
of Dickinsonâs wonderful language and the value of studying it closely. Third,
because âDickinsonâs poems are briefâ (West, 1993: 31) many stylistic devices,
including âcompression and ellipsisâ (Richmond, 1989: 41) and deletions of
nouns and verbs (Ross, 2004), are used in a sophisticated manner within that
rather small space known as a Dickinson lyric poem. This may be why some
refer to Dickinsonâs work as âiridescent, puzzling, explosiveâ (Tursi, 1998), an
opinion that makes it all the more fitting to turn to Dickinsonâs poems for a
discussion of the rhetorical function of poetic figures. To summarize, my choice
of Dickinson is justifiable because âmetaphor assumes vital meaningâ in her
poems (Richmond, 1989: 37) and because her metaphors âjar one into an
original, lively experience with [. . .] words, ideas, and situationsâ (Richmond,
1989: 39).
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4. 2 The Poems1
Poem F372 (Dickinson, 1999: 170)
After great pain, a formal feeling comes â
The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs â
The stiff Heart questions âwas it He, that boreâ,
And âYesterday, or Centuries beforeâ?
The Feet, mechanical, go round â
A Wooden way
Of Ground, or Air, or Ought â
Regardless grown,
A Quartz contentment, like a stone â
This is the Hour of Lead â
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow â
First â Chill â then Stupor â then the letting go â
Poem F598 (Dickinson, 1999: 269)
The Brain â is wider than the Sky â
For â put them side by side â
The one the other will contain
With ease â and You â beside â
The Brain is deeper than the sea â
For â hold them â Blue to Blue â
The one the other will absorb â
As Sponges â Buckets â do â
The Brain is just the weight of God â
For â Heft them â Pound for Pound â
And they will differ â if they do â
As Syllable from Sound â
Poem F1381 (Dickinson, 1999: 529)
The Heart is the Capital of the Mind
The Mind is a single State â
The Heart and the Mind together make
A single Continent â
One â is the Population â
Numerous enough â
This ecstatic Nation
Seek â it is Yourself.2
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5. 3 âAfter great pain, a formal feeling comesâ (Poem F372)
My interest in Dickinsonâs figurative language stems in part from my
dissatisfaction with the way some scholars discuss her use of it. For example,
Richmond finds that metaphor for Dickinson âdoes not merely compare two
objects of the real world, as in the traditional poetic performance of Milton or
Dryden or Keats; rather, the metaphor articulates the feelings she has experienced
in pure perceptionâ (1989: 34). Richmond assumes that Dickinsonâs metaphors
are so unique that they have little in common with the metaphors of other great
poets, especially since they are rooted in âpure perceptionâ. While I do not know
what âpure perceptionâ is, a cognitive linguist familiar with conceptual metaphor
theory could probably find that the metaphors of Milton, Dryden, Keats, and
Dickinson have more in common than someone like Richmond thinks. To be fair,
Richmond is insightful when he says that Dickinsonâs metaphors âconstitute the
reality of a poem by being the poem, rather than embellished comparisons that
are interpolated into the poemâ (Richmond, 1989: 35), and this insight seems an
appropriate place to begin.
Eminent Dickinson critics like Cameron spread confusion where clarity is
called for in discussing Dickinsonâs use of figurative language. For example, in
reference to âLonging is like the Seed / That wrestles in the Groundâ (F1298),
Cameron writes:
Similes recognize that we fail at direct names because we fail at perfect
comprehension, and that certain experiences evade mastery and hence
definition â the best we can do is approximate or approach them; a simile is
an acknowledgment of that failure and contains within it the pain of imperfect
rendering. (1979: 35)
Here Cameron argues that metaphors are more direct than similes and,
conversely, that similes are less direct than metaphors. Cameron would thus say
that âLonging is like the Seedâ is less direct than âLonging is the Seedâ. That is
fine as far as it goes, but Cameronâs account of why similes seem less direct than
metaphors does not go very far. To suggest somehow that similes are signs of
âimperfectâ âcomprehensionâ, or of a âfailureâ in comprehension, is to mystify
similes unnecessarily, devalue the use of figurative language, and underestimate
the mindâs methods of meaning-making. Cameronâs account also fails to consider
in depth why similes and metaphors seem different in their directness. As poem
F372 reveals, similes are a means of comprehension rather than signs of a failure
to comprehend. Dickinsonâs similes also point to the rhetorical nature of the
poem. Dickinson probably persuades most of her readers to believe that grief is a
devastating emotion. Pathos results from that argument, but the logos of that
argument is rooted in a comparison: to feel grief in mourning the death of some-
one else is similar to the pain one would feel in freezing to death oneself.
To see exactly how that argument is constructed and conveyed, however, the
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6. poemâs figurative language needs to be discussed in depth. There are at least four
things readers might notice when re-reading the poem. First, there are
Dickinsonâs metaphors. Throughout the poem Dickinson personifies various parts
of the body. She tells us âThe Nerves sitâ, the âHeart questionsâ, and the âFeet
[. . .] go roundâ. Body parts that sit, question, and walk seem to do on their own
what an entire individual could do. Dickinsonâs choice to focus on the parts
rather than on the whole helps readers assign agency to the body parts rather than
to the person as a whole. The result is a representation of a passive persona to
whom things happen rather than an active persona who makes things happen.
Also, the âformal feeling comesâ to the persona as if of its own volition, and this
too personifies an emotion whose cause is apparently not to be located within the
persona here. As Dickinson scholars have noted, in a poem allegedly about âthe
mindâs self-protective abandonment of consciousnessâ (Eberwein, 1985: 141), the
âformal feelingâ indicates âan abdication of presenceâ (Cameron, 1979: 168). This
is similar to what Freeman, another Dickinson scholar, has discovered in
Dickinsonâs poems in general: they often suggest a âsense of absenceâ while a
âsemantics of silenceâ is implied by her ubiquitous use of dashes (Freeman, 1996:
203).
Second, there are Dickinsonâs similes. Her first simile, âThe Nerves sit
ceremonious, like Tombsâ, evokes a stillness of the nerves that owes little to an
actual lack of empathy on the part of the persona. Her second simile, âA Quartz
contentment, like a stone ââ, seems strained to Cameron (1979: 15), apparently
because âquartz is a stoneâ. However, the simileâs target is not âQuartzâ but
âcontentmentâ. While âQuartzâ belongs to the category of stones, here it functions
as an adjective modifying an emotion, âcontentmentâ. One reason why âQuartzâ
can be used to depict âcontentmentâ is that emotions and stones do not belong to
the same conceptual categories (more on this simile later). Finally, the third
simile compares the personaâs future remembrance of this specific feeling of
grief to the sequential recollection that âFreezing personsâ may have of âthe
Snowâ: âFirst â Chill â then Stupor â then the letting go ââ. One way to para-
phrase this last simile is as follows: âThis experience of grief is like death by
freezing: there is the chill, then the stupor as the body becomes numbed, and the
last state in which the body finally gives up the fight against the cold, and relaxes
and diesâ (Brooks and Warren, 1972 [1938]: 71). Another way to interpret what
occurs here is to say that the poemâs âconcluding simile departs from the present
as if in analogy there were some further, final escapeâ (Cameron, 1979: 168).
Rhetoric textbooks often define simile as an explicit comparison and metaphor
as an implicit comparison (Lanham, 1991: 140), and Dickinson explicitly
compares how the persona experiences grief to how the victims of death by
freezing feel. But if the presence of the last simile of the poem signifies âsome
further, final escapeâ, then what Cameron has done is take the simile as
signifying something implicit rather than something explicit. Understanding the
simile, and interpreting it as a referring to something else (âfinal escapeâ), are
two distinct processes. To be fair to Cameron, some of the confusion over similes
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284 CRAIG HAMILTON
7. can be traced back to Aristotle, who called similes âmetaphors, differing in the
form of expressionâ (Aristotle, 1991: 229). Intuitively, metaphors (A is B) seem
stronger than similes (A is like B) in that they imply more rigid categorizations
(Glucksberg and McGlone, 1999). Furthermore, as Glucksberg and Keysar argue
(1993: 406), âSimiles can always be intensified by putting them in metaphor
form, whereas the reverse does not holdâ. That may be why we feel a difference
between ânerves are tombs sitting ceremoniouslyâ and ânerves sit ceremoniously
like tombsâ. But according to Israel et al. (2003: 3) there is another way to
explain such differences: âA simile is a figurative comparison that reflects
similarities between conventionally unrelated items or domains rather than
creating similarities, which is what metaphor can do.â If true, then the similes
âlike Tombsâ, âlike a stoneâ, and âAs Freezing personsâ evoke concrete source
domains that âreflect similaritiesâ with more abstract target domains. Now, if
people had to know everything about the visual systemâs working in order to see,
then only the neuroscientists of vision would be able to see. Readers do not need
to know how similes work in order to understand them, but critics might want to
think about how similes work before interpreting them and then claiming what
they mean. Therefore, while it is possible to interpret (as Cameron does) the
presence and use of the last simile in Dickinsonâs poem as representing âsome
further, final escapeâ, it is important to see that comprehending the simile and
making this claim are two different processes, and that taking the former process
for granted may have consequences for the latter.
Third, it can be argued that the words âformalâ, âceremoniousâ, âTombsâ, âHeâ,
and âstoneâ reveal the presence of a funeral schema. My claim that grief is the
emotion Dickinson portrays is based on prototypically associating grief with
funerals. A refusal to demonstrate grief at a funeral is taken as a sign of abnormal
behavior (Mersaultâs behavior at his motherâs funeral in Camusâ The Stranger is
but one literary example of this kind of behavior). With that in mind, the question
raised by Brooks and Warren (1972 [1938]: 71) â âwhy does the poet use
âquartzââ? â can be answered directly. Psycholinguistic research has shown that
subjects tend to prefer concrete rather than abstract source domains when
processing figurative language (Shen, 1997: 45).3 Comparisons based on abstract
source concepts tend to be âanomalousâ or âdifficult to understandâ (Shen, 1997:
45). Dickinson refers to heavy, concrete, and hard objects in order to convey
grief to us, and this is what helps make the figures comprehensible. For example,
if the opposite of Quartz contentment is feather contentment, then it is easy to
see what sort of âcontentmentâ âQuartz contentmentâ is. In addition, DIFFICULT IS
HEAVY and DIFFICULTIES ARE BURDENS (Grady, 1999: 80, 96) are two closely
related metaphors that explain the motivations behind Dickinsonâs choice. As
Grady (1999: 96) has found, âweight and difficulty are two concepts linkedâ in
many different languages via the DIFFICULT IS HEAVY and DIFFICULTIES ARE
BURDENS metaphors. To say that something is difficult, we may therefore say that
it is heavy (e.g. âI have a heavy task ahead of me this weekendâ). Tombs, stones,
quartz, and lead are heavy; when coupled with an emotion, they suggest a
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8. difficult emotion that is a heavy emotion. Of course, Dickinson does not
explicitly say âGrief is a very difficult emotion to experience and an almost
impossible emotion to bearâ, but that is one way to summarize her argument and
explain her choice of words like âQuartzâ.
Fourth, Dickinsonâs last stanza evokes two basic metaphors: DEATH IS WINTER
and LIFE IS A PRECIOUS POSSESSION (Lakoff and Turner, 1989: 18, 30). If life is
warmth and death is cold, then Dickinsonâs choice of words like âFreezingâ,
âSnowâ, and âChillâ are associated with the domain of death. Also, if life is
something that we may hang on to, cling to, or let go of, then âletting goâ in the
poemâs last line metaphorically refers to dying. Granted, this may seem obvious,
but it is worth realizing what general conceptual metaphors Dickinson relies on
specifically in order to make her point. To comprehend what her argument is and
how that argument works, it is thus useful to see how her specific linguistic
metaphors relate to more general conceptual metaphors. Clearly, Dickinsonâs
metaphors reveal that she fully understands a concept such as PASSIONATE IS HOT;
DISPASSIONATE IS COLD (Lakoff and Turner, 1989: 190). To call someone âhotâ or
âcoldâ is to say very different things about them, and Dickinson understood that.
For example, in a letter to her sister-in-law, Susan Huntington Dickinson, the
poet once wrote: âmy heart beats so fast [. . .] my darling, so near I seem to you,
that I disdain this pen, and wait for a warmer languageâ (quoted in Koski, 1996:
29). To interpret âwarmerâ as synonymous with âless affectionateâ in that last
sentence is to fundamentally misunderstand Dickinsonâs words. However, the
widespread (albeit unconscious) knowledge that many people have of PASSION IS
HOT; DISPASSIONATE IS COLD helps limit such misunderstandings.
The four things I have just discussed are not all that can be said about this
poem, of course. I did not analyze the poemâs metrical pattern, its rhyme scheme,
its textual history, its biographical context, and its potential intertextual links.
One might also note, as Freeman does (1996: 194), that a hallmark of
Dickinsonâs style is her deletion of several components from the question in the
first stanza: âThe stiff Heart questions âwas it He, that bore, [the pain] / And [did
he bear it] âYesterday, or [did he bear it] Centuries before?ââ. I agree that such
deletions âturn the reader into an active participant who must provide that which
is left unsaidâ (Freeman, 1996: 194), but I did not discuss these deletions. Nor did
I discuss the conditional statement, âRemembered, if outlivedâ, although just as
the persona seems absent-minded because of the grief she feels, so too is âthe
agent of the remembering and the outliving [. . .] also missingâ (Freeman, 1996:
203). I could continue to list the things I have excluded from my discussion here
in order to demonstrate that cognitive rhetoric does not hold all the answers to
every possible question that could be put to the poem,4 but my decision to focus
on the poemâs figurative language is based on my opinion that a discussion of the
poemâs figures can help explain how readers realize the poemâs argument. In
other words, readers studying the poem might not notice the poemâs dominant
metrical pattern and yet still understand Dickinsonâs argument about grief based
on their comprehension of Dickinsonâs figurative language. Because the same
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286 CRAIG HAMILTON
9. thing could be said about Dickinsonâs analogies in both âThe Brain â is wider
than the Skyâ and âThe Heart is the Capital of the Mindâ, I now wish to discuss
those two poems.
4 âThe Brain â is wider than the Skyâ (F598)
In poem F598, âThe Brain â is wider than the Skyâ, Dickinson uses analogies to
define the mind in a not altogether straightforward manner. She avoids saying
directly what the âbrainâ is; instead, she says what its properties are by
contrasting the brain with the sky, the sea, and Godâs weight. Each stanza in the
poem begins with a debatable proposition, and then supports that proposition
with a qualifying clause that begins with âforâ. The function of the proposition is
to introduce the first two items from the analogy; a function of the qualification
that supports the proposition is to introduce the last two items from the analogy.
In short, the poemâs three analogies follow this pattern. Although Dickinsonâs
analogies are novel, they offer evidence for Turnerâs claim that â[a]nalogies are
not structured between very like conceptsâ and âanalogies do not exist between
very like conceptsâ (1991: 135). As Turner states:
To recognize a statement as an analogy is to recognize that it is in some way
putting pressure on our category structures. Therefore, the act of recognizing
analogy depends upon the details of our category structures. Principles of
recognizing a statement as an analogy are influenced by and reflect principles
of categorization. (1991: 122)
With respect to Dickinson, we might ask: how do her analogies put pressure
on our categories? At first glance, the analogy in stanza one is nonsense. A sky
that envelops a globe that is almost 23,000 miles in circumference is far âwider
thanâ a brain that may be but inches in circumference and which is itself housed
within a small human skull. But if âBrainâ can mean âconsciousnessâ or âthe seat
of the selfâ (Gelpi, 1965: 99), then it need not be taken literally as the object
between your ears. So what drives the construction of the analogy is the word
âcontainâ, which does put our categories under pressure. If consciousness is
âwider than the Sky / Forâ it can âcontainâ not only the sky but also the poemâs
addressee, then the analogy entails categorizing the brain as a container and
thereby locating concepts like the sky within it when we have âput them side by
sideâ.5
The analogy in the second stanza can be spelled out as follows: just as a
sponge can retain water, so too can the brain âabsorbâ the seaâs depth and its
color. The juxtaposition of these four items (sponge / water / brain / sea) is
provoked by Dickinsonâs metonymic command to âhold them â Blue to Blue ââ.
For Stonum, in this analogy âthe mind, the comprehending agent, is larger than
the comprehended objectâ (1990: 101). What Stonumâs use of the word âlargerâ
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10. suggests is that Dickinson is arguing that the brain (Stonum would call it the
mind, Gelpi would call it consciousness or the seat of the self) is âmore
significantâ than the sea. But how is this conclusion possible? One of our most
fundamental conceptual metaphors is IMPORTANT IS BIG (Lakoff and Turner, 1989:
206â7), which Grady (1999: 80) redefined as SIGNIFICANT IS LARGE. This is a
universal albeit conventional primary metaphor since in many unrelated
languages around the world â such as Zulu, Hawaiian, Turkish, Malay, and
Russian (Grady, 1999: 80) â people attribute importance to size, as in âTomorrow
is a big day for meâ. This attribution is one Dickinson counts on readers to make
as she argues for the brainâs significance and importance. Her analogies in
stanzas one and two, in other words, are means for arguing that the brain is
significant because it can âcontainâ the sky and âabsorbâ the sea. Again, as was
the case with âcontainâ earlier, here the verb âabsorbâ is also figurative, for a brain
cannot literally âabsorbâ a sea. But Dickinson tells us it can because the brain is
analogous to a sponge in a bucket full of water, a sponge that can retain a volume
that is greater than its own. If this poem is âan examination of mental powersâ
(Stonum, 1990: 100), that examination is embodied by the analogies readers
construct in order to better understand the mind and/or brain.
In the last stanza, the belief that the mind is infinite reappears when Dickinson
says it âis just the weight of Godâ. However, a sort of caveat is inserted into the
argument when she suggests that the only difference in weight between the mind
and God is the same difference in weight that exists between âSyllableâ and
âSoundâ. As was the case in the previous stanza, where four elements for the
analogy were present (brain / sponge / sea / water in bucket), four elements are
also present here (brainâs weight / Godâs weight / syllable / sound). A conditional
statement (âif they doâ) introduces the caveat. As Sweetser has argued, the reason
why such pleonastic uses of âifâ are pragmatically acceptable in everyday
discourse is that âit is often useful to display the train of reasoning leading to the
conclusion expressedâ (1990: 131). One of the functions of âifâ, however, is âto
argue from an already shared belief of speaker and hearer to a not-yet-shared
beliefâ (Sweetser, 1990: 129), which suggests that Dickinson uses the phrase âif
they doâ in a way that is more conditional than counterfactual. This is due to the
fact that once readers agree that the first two items in the analogy (the brainâs
weight and Godâs weight) are equivalent, then the belief that syllable could
âdifferâ from sound (the last two items in the analogy) can become a belief shared
by both persona and addressee, a belief which may help to seal the poemâs
argument, as it were.
5 âThe Heart is the Capital of the Mindâ (F1381)
Dickinson once again turns to analogy in Poem F1381, âThe Heart is the Capital
of the Mindâ, this time in an argument against mindâbody dualism. Grammati-
cally, the form of the poemâs title metaphor can be understood as follows: Noun
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288 CRAIG HAMILTON
11. Phrase be Noun Phrase of Noun Phrase. These patterns are âXYZ metaphorsâ and
their semantics can be schematized as follows: âX is the Y of Zâ (Turner, 1991:
201). In the first line of Dickinsonâs poem, therefore, the following pattern is
recognizable:
â Phrase: âThe Heart is the Capital of the Mindâ
â Syntax: NP be NP of NP
â Semantics: X is the Y of Z
â Analogy: X is to Z as Y is to W.
Dickinsonâs opening line asks readers to vividly connect the body and the mind
via analogical mappings. It prompts readers to understand âthe Heartâ as âthe
Capital of the Mindâ by leading them to grasp certain cross-domain relationships:
Source: Political Entity Target: Human Being
Capital (Y) Heart (X)
Country (W) Mind (Z)
Dickinson explicitly provides elements X, Y, and Z, but W is implicitly evoked.
In order to understand the relationship between the heart (X) and the mind (Z),
readers must understand analogically the relationship a capital (Y) has to an
entity such as a country (W). Doing so leads readers to see that what the heart
(X) is to the mind (Z) a capital (Y) is to a country (W). Because W is implicit
rather than explicit, readers implicitly supply it to complete the pattern and
process the figurative expression. This may be why Stonum has said that
Dickinsonâs poetry is âdesigned more to stimulate responses in the readerâ, which
âencourages a readerâs coming into his ownâ (1990: 90).
Exactly how readers âcome into their ownâ with lines like âThe Heart is
the Capital of the Mindâ can be accounted for by conceptual blending theory
(Fauconnier and Turner, 2002). Dickinsonâs line provokes an analogy
(X:Z :: Y:W), a pattern evoked by elements X, Y, and Z but completed only
when readers actively supply element W as they read. What makes such an
analogy so creative, of course, is that when Y and Z are blended to result in the
concept of âthe capital of the mindâ, this becomes a memorable means for
defining the heart. In fact, ideas like these lead Fauconnier and Turner (2002: 14)
to state âthat analogy, as a cognitive operation, [is] intricate, powerful, and
fundamentalâ and that analogy âhas traditionally been viewed as a powerful
engine of discoveryâ. Within the context of Dickinsonâs poem, the opening
analogy is just such an example of a âdiscoveryâ that is âpowerfulâ.
Just as we saw with Dickinsonâs principled choice of words in âAfter great
pain, a formal feeling comesâ, metaphoric cohesion is again visible in this poem
when Dickinson situates âHeartâ, âMindâ, âContinentâ, and âYourselfâ within the
target input, and âCapitalâ, âStateâ, âPopulationâ, and âNationâ within the source
input. The relationship between these eight terms in the two inputs helps create
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12. the cohesion we sense, although two of the eight terms (continent and state)
might seem out of place. âStateâ can refer to different things, including a mood or
attitude, but it also refers to a political entity which coheres with the other items
in the source input. After all, in âThe Mind is a single Stateâ, line two of the
poem, the target is mind rather than state. As for âContinentâ, it is more a
geographical entity than a political one since of the worldâs seven continents only
Australia contains a single nation-state within it. To return to metaphoric
cohesion in Dickinsonâs poem, her choice of words allows her poem to answer a
series of important questions. What is the mind? A âsingle Stateâ. What is the
heart? The âCapital of the Mindâ. What do the heart and mind make when
combined? A âsingle Continentâ. If the mind and body are one continent, then
what is that continentâs âPopulationâ? âOneâ person who is âNumerous enoughâ.
What is a population of one? An âecstatic Nationâ that you should âSeekâ. Why?
It is âYourselfâ.
These questions and their answers may lend a dialogic structure to the poem.
However, they may also seem but a simplistic paraphrase of the poem, a poem
which itself is a variation on the âKnow thyselfâ motto of Socrates. Nevertheless,
the questions reveal how Dickinson continually defines and redefines her terms.
The heart is defined, the mind is defined, and then what the heart and mind
âtogether makeâ is defined (a âsingle Continentâ). In the last stanza, âContinentâ
then undergoes redefinition and becomes âYourselfâ. That returns the reader back
to the beginning. What is âYourselfâ? Your mind and body combined in a single
entity, according to Dickinson, an entity you have to search for. Clearly, what
Cameron calls âDickinsonâs Poems of Definitionâ (1979: 26â55) includes poem
F1381. However, we also have an example here of what Lakoff (1996: 91) has
called the âMetaphor System for Conceptualizing the Selfâ, whereby the âselfâ is
thought of as an object that can be lost, found, or looked for. There are also
possible connections with âYourselfâ to mental space theory given a rule that
Freeman sees operating in many of Dickinsonâs poems: âWhenever a subject
referent in one (originating) space projects a mental space (target) via a trigger or
space-builder, its pronoun counterpart in the target space will take the
corresponding -self anaphor formâ (Freeman, 1997: 14). When the imperative
âSeekâ is used in line 8, and a second-person addressee (You) is entailed by the
imperative, then the choice to use âYourselfâ in that line is entirely understandable.
Again, this is something I have not fully discussed because of my focus on
Dickinsonâs figures and the contribution they make to the poemâs argument.
Cognitive rhetoric, therefore, does not produce exhaustive interpretations of
works.
6 Conclusion
At this point, skeptics might raise several objections to what I have said in this
article. First, there is my choice of the Franklin edition. By making that choice, I
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290 CRAIG HAMILTON
13. realize I am favoring an imperfect typeset edition of Dickinsonâs poems over the
handwritten manuscript versions of the poems that can be found in the fascicles.
That is, I am privileging âlinguistic codesâ over âbibliographic codesâ (McGann,
1991: 56) in a way that, in all honesty, most critics do. The absence of a single
authoritative edition of the poems that all Dickinson scholars will accept as the
accurate public record of her work means critics can either use this as an excuse
to ignore Dickinsonâs poetry or make the best of an imperfect situation and
analyze her poetry.
Second, my assumptions about what âreadersâ do as they read Dickinsonâs
poems have not been empirically validated for the purposes specific to this
article. While Smith and Hart have proposed that Susan Huntington Dickinson,
Emily Dickinsonâs sister-in-law, was the poetâs âprimary readerâ, that could be âa
stretch considering Dickinsonâs rich correspondence with intellectuals like
Thomas Wentworth Higginson and Samuel Bowlesâ (Tursi, 1998), men to whom
Dickinson also sent poems. Additionally, Dickinson offered poem F1368 (âOpon
a lilac seaâ) to Helen Hunt Jackson for her wedding, which is perhaps another
example of a poem Dickinson addressed to a specific reader (Freeman, 1996:
199). Information like this may account for the âthe tangible immediacyâ (West,
1993: 34) of some of Dickinsonâs poems, especially given that the closer the
relationship between participants in a discourse, the more implicit the speakerâs
discourse becomes (Freeman, 1996: 192), and yet, until my assumptions are
falsified, I find it reasonable to believe that the cognitive processes of simile,
metaphor, and analogy that I have outlined here occur with equal regularity
within the minds of most of Dickinsonâs readers.
Third, my belief that a rhetoric of poetry is possible may seem misguided to
those who would make hard and fast distinctions between rhetoric and poetics.
Rhetorical criticism for many years appeared to be merely an exercise in labeling
or identifying the rhetorical figures the critic found in the text. But how many
readers, for example, really recognize chiasmus or antimetabole when they see
it? Moreover, is that recognition vital to comprehension, or is it not? Or, put
another way, how does identification relate to interpretation and explanation?
While this article has not addressed empirical questions like these, I think it safe
to say that figure identification is neither interpretation nor explanation. That
said, cognitive rhetoricians might study the relations between identification,
explanation, and interpretation in order to see if cognitive rhetoric has an answer
to this question.
Fourth, cognitive rhetoric may help critics answer some questions about
Dickinsonâs poems in particular, and poetry in general, but I want to make it
clear that it will never have all the answers to all the questions critics might put
to a given text. For example, a critic might want to interpret poem F1381, âThe
Heart is the Capital of the Mindâ, along historical or political lines. This critic
would note that the poem was written around 1875 in the context of post-Civil
War America. In this context, words like âCapitalâ and âNationâ could seem
important to this critic because the mindâbody unification suggested by the poem
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A COGNITIVE RHETORIC OF POETRY 291
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