Cartographies of cognitive poetics

The founder of Cognitive Poetics, Reuven Tsur, has seen his project broaden and evolve over the last quarter-century. Some of these developments run counter to Tsur’s continuing thinking, and he has been critical of some of the work that now goes under the name ‘cognitive poetics’. This paper is partly a response to criticisms made by Tsur specifically in relation to Stockwell’s work, and partly a more general defence of the broad discipline as it has emerged in recent years. The argument concerns the relationship between literary criticism and cognitive poetics, and the nature of the radical critique of traditional methods offered by the cognitive turn in arts and humanities research. A case for the broad definition of the term and its radical application is made.