Palaeopoetics

Christopher Collins introduces an exciting new field of research that traverses evolutionary biology, anthropology, archaeology, cognitive psychology, linguistics, neuroscience, and literary study. Palaeopoetics maps the selective processes that shaped the human genus millions of years ago and prepared the human brain to play, imagine, empathize, and engage in fictive thought as mediated by language. A manifestation of the cognitive turn in the humanities, this study calls for a broader, more integrated interpretation of the reading experience, one that restores our connection to the ancient methods of thought production still resonating within us. Speaking with authority on the scientific aspects of cognitive poetics, Collins proposes reading literature using cognitive skills that predate language and writing. These include the brains capacity to perceive the visible world, store its images, and retrieve them later to form simulated mental events. Long before humans could share stories through speech, they perceived, remembered, and imagined their own inner narratives.