Reading the Text World of Omar Khayyam's Poetry According to System Mapping by Cognitive Poetics Approach

Document Type : Research Article

Author

• Leila Sadeghi

10.22067/jls.v44i4.14575

Abstract

The focus of this study is to analyze the text world of Omar Khayyam's poetry by a novel approach called cognitive poetics. To examine the author’s/reader's text world, the study has employed Freeman’s model (1998). She believes that conceptual mapping in literary texts can operate at three different levels including “attribute mapping,” “relational mapping,” and “system mapping.” Through reading Khayyam's text world according to the final level mapping, one can identify Khayyam's insight and map out the structure of his poems as well. The purpose of research is to show how cognitive poetics could make a distinction between everyday language and poetry as well as analyzing a poem. This paper is going to ask: 1) how system mapping as a main characteristic of poetry could help a poem's interpretation using the two other levels; 2) how three cognitive mapping can picture Khayyam's text world; and 3) how it is possible to draw clear-cut limitations for multiple interpretations and distinguish a fake poem from an original one by cognitive poetry methodology. Studying the text world according to this approach can suggest a method for textual analysis which literary theory cannot.

Keywords

• text world
• cognitive poetics
• mapping
• interpretation

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