ABSTRACT
This chapter makes use of one of the most influential cognitive poetic frameworks to have emerged in recent years. The notion of ‘parabolic projection’, originally developed by Mark Turner in the 1990s, has proved particularly appealing to literary critics interested in how the human mind deals with literary texts. Here, Michael Burke applies Turner’s ideas to Shakespeare’s Sonnet 2, in order to reveal how readers use their everyday experience to reach an interpretation of the text and then go on to project that interpretation back onto their own lives. This analysis and discussion can be seen to follow on from those of conceptual metaphor and blending put forward in preceding chapters in this collection. You may also find a consideration of Burke’s analysis alongside Keith Oatley’s closing chapter particularly thought-provoking.
