Deictic and Epistemic Sub-worlds in a Paul Werthian Cognitive Poetics Theory and Gadamerian Historicity of Understanding in Reading Ali Babachahi’s “Farness and …”

Document Type : Review

Author

PhD student in Persian language and literature, Ferdowsi University, Mashhad, Iran.

Abstract

The conceptual levels analysed within Text World Theory are discourse-world, text-world, and sub-world. The sub-world enables the critic to analyse the epistemological aspects of the text by focusing on deictic phrases, nouns, and adverbs. This descriptive-analytical research discusses the impact of deictic worlds and the system  of metaphors in recognising the epistemic world in Ali Babachahi’s “Farness and …” The present article aims to answer these questions: Considering the chronological course of the poem’s deictic world, how we can unveil the poet’s epistemic world, and how does the systematic network of cognitive metaphors reveal the poet’s epistemological system? The results show that the poetic narrative expresses concern about the past which is relieved by the poet’s predictions and return to traditions.
 
Extended Abstract
1.Introduction
Cognitive theories — philosophically rooted in phenomenology and hermeneutics, and critically rooted in literary Darwinism — describe the behaviour of characters, interpret and criticise literary texts, and determine the progressive sequence of literary works.
 
2.Theoretical Framework
Hermeneutics unveils the ontological views of the poet through a dialogue between the poet and the poem’s horizon of meaning. And through cognitive theories, we access the worldviews of the poet via reader-producer dialogue. Analysing the worldviews and intentions of an author is what differentiates cognitive criticisms, which one can only unveil through synthesising textual analysis and proxy theories such as hermeneutics and phenomenology. In his Text Worlds: Representing Conceptual Space in Discourse, Paul Werth formulated his ‘cognitive poetics’ by synthesising previous cognitive theories. He analysed the text in three conceptual levels: discourse-world, text-world, and sub-world. Text-world includes world-making and role-giving elements and propositions. The text's world-making elements are time, place, characters, and objects, which create the textual background. The role-giving propositions make up the narrative and character and world interactions, and determine whether a text is narrative, descriptive, or didactic.  The discourse-world includes the relation between the author and the reader and is composed of the text, the ambiance, and people in the dialogue. Some of the factors which influence the discourse-world are the beliefs, knowledge, memories, hopes, fears, dreams, and intentions of the discourse participants. The sub-world is actually the author’s movement from the original text to other chronological events, spaces, and characters. It marks the origin of the characters’ beliefs and worldviews. Therefore, the sub-world is of great importance in textual interpretation. In his Text World Theory, Werth conceptualises three sub-worlds: deictic, attitudinal, and epistemic. The deictic sub-world includes chronological and spatial flashbacks and flashforwards. Attitude-based sub-worlds are formed in accordance with the beliefs, desires, and intentions of the participants in order to create and encode the ‘belief world,’ ‘dream world,’ and ‘goal world.’ Lastly, the characters’ beliefs in the plausibility of the narrative world create the epistemic sub-world.
 
3.Methodology
This analytical-descriptive study is a Werthian ‘cognitive poetics’ reading of Ali Babachahi’s “Farness and …” it seeks to study the poet’s worldview, which keep changing in accordance with Heideggerian Hermeneutics and in response to new experiences. This study aims to answer these questions: considering the deictic chronology of the poem, how can one unveil the poet’s epistemic world?  In what ways does the systematic network of cognitive metaphors influence the recognition of the poem’s epistemic system and the position of the poet? Which philosophical concept can serve as the best proxy theory to unveil and discuss the poet's epistemic world?
  
4.Discussion and Analysis
In the selected poem, the characters change from “he” and “you” to “you”, “I”, and “us.” Thus, we encounter a change in the narrative’s point of view. The settings are the room, apartment, alley, and imagined places (mountain, cell, and kingdom of God). In the discourse world, “absence makes the heart grow fonder” ignites skepticism toward old beliefs and opens the possibility of the formation of new ones. The poet, after witnessing that spatial closeness will not provide companionship, starts a long-distance ‘bromance’ to study the spatial aspects of friendship. In the deictic sub-world, the poet travels to an imaginary future and returns to the original timeline – or the narrative’s time zero — and then shifts to the present. The narrative concretizes the commonplace culture through the poet’s desire for a companion in the dream world. The tenses of the verbs the poet uses in his poem and the deictic world represent the poet’s dynamism through history and tradition and his desire to reach a new understanding of the text and intertexts. In order to discover himself in the universe, the poet questions his old beliefs and frees himself from the bond and shackles of his etehical views in order to make way for the possibilities – represented by water metaphors. At this point, the horizons of the text and the reader and the past and the present merge into one another and the reader wonders if distance stimulates or terminates friendship. To find an answer to the question, the poet expands his horizons to the point that his bitter experiences and inabilities prevent him from maintaining his friendship. As a resutl, he forfeits his friendship and experiences a new form of loneliness, born out of maturity.
 
5.Conclusion
The article concludes that the spontaneous overflow of emotions and freedom in the choice of personal values are regulated through prediction and the reality of death. The poet restates his belief in the “absence makes the heart grow fonder” tradition and concretizes his epistemic world, which is in line with the dominant culture. Furthermore, he realises that spatial proximity does not strengthen friendship; in fact, distance and social status can promote and maintain friendship.
 
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Keywords

Main Subjects


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