Gestalt qualities in poetry and the reader's absorption style

Tsur, Reuven; Glicksohn, Joseph; Goodblatt, Chanita

doi:10.1016/0378-2166(91)90138-n

Cited by 15 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…Though the exact nature of this effect is not entirely clear, it suggests that judgement tasks of the sort we used here are sensitive to the "musicality" of the participants, and that non-musicians are more sensitive to certain differences than trained musicians (see also Siegel & Siegel, 1977). Also, the lack of a reliable effect of absorption style on the results is particularly puzzling, because in earlier research by Tsur et al (1991), absorption, as well as its interaction with professional training, gave highly significant results.…”

Section: Rating Judgementsmentioning

confidence: 76%

“Softened” voice quality in poetry reading and listener response

Gafni

Tsur

2015

SSOL

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In the performance of poetry, some performers occasionally use a certain ‘softened’ voice quality, deviating from that of the context, for emotive expression. We explored how listeners perceive such instances through a combined methodology of eliciting open-ended descriptions and ratings of pre-defined terms on ordinal scales. The collected responses confirm our intuitions that listeners are sensitive to this voice quality, which gives rise to impressions, such asaffection, yearning,andcontemplation. The chosen methodology allowed us, through variations between verbal and numerical responses, to observe the interaction of this voice quality with other factors, such as semantic content and other salient voice qualities. Finally, the responses highlight the distinction between two delivery styles used by performers — an impassive, grave style, typical of poetry recitals, on the one hand, and a more emotional “theatrical” style, on the other hand.

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Section: Rating Judgementsmentioning

confidence: 76%

“Softened” voice quality in poetry reading and listener response

Gafni

Tsur

2015

SSOL

Self Cite

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“…For example, Tsur (2015: 37) argues that lineation and syntactic constituency can "reinforce each other's Gestalt". Tsur et al (1991) apply Gestalt theory to the shape of the 'Rubaiyat'-style stanza with an AABA rhyme scheme. They predicted that "on the prosodic level, the rhyme-scheme of the stanza is felt to close the AABA version firmly, with a 'click'; this effect is reinforced by the closing-aspect of the 'closural allusion' on the thematic level."…”

Section: Gestalt Theory Music and Poetrymentioning

confidence: 99%

Untitled

2016

IJLL

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Smith (1968) argues that poems may end with formal changes which produce an experience of closure in the reader. I argue that formal changes do not directly cause an experience of closure. Instead, changes in poetic form always demand increased processing effort from the reader, whether they involve new forms, shifts from more to less regular form, or from less to more regular form. I use relevance theory (Sperber and Wilson 1995) to argue that the increased processing effort encourages the reader to formulate rich and relevant thoughts, including the thought 'this poem has closure'. Closure is thus the content of a thought rather than a type of experience. I further argue that 'closure' is a term whose meaning cannot be fully understood, which makes the thought 'this poem has closure' into a schematic belief of the kind which Sperber shows has great richness and productivity. This is one of the reasons that the thought 'this poem has closure' achieves sufficient relevance to justify the effort put into processing the end of the poem. She says that closure is a "sense of finality, stability, and integrity" and "depends primarily upon the reader's experience of the structure of the entire poem" (Smith 1968: viii). Smith makes two claims, that closure is a distinct type of experience, and that the experience of closure arises when formal changes at the end of the text manipulate the reader's expectations.

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“…One of the earliest, and perhaps the most important application of gestalt theory to literature is Barbara Herrnstein-Smith's mind-expanding book Poetic Closure (1968). During the past three decades I devoted much research to poetic prosody; I have found that many of the aesthetically most interesting issues regarding poetic rhythm, rhyme patterns and stanza form can be understood only through having recourse to gestalt theory (e.g., Tsur, 1977;1992: 111-179;Tsur et al, 1990Tsur et al, , 1991, see now also Tsur, 2006: 115-141). In the present paper, however, I will explore figure-ground relationships in the projected, extra-linguistic world.…”

Section: Gestalt Rules Of Figure-groundmentioning

confidence: 99%

Metaphor and figure-ground relationship: comparisons from poetry, music, and the visual arts

Vandaele¹,

Brône²

2009

Cognitive Poetics

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The gestalt notion "figure-ground phenomenon" refers to the characteristic organisation of perception into a figure that 'stands out' against an undifferentiated background. What is figural at any one moment depends on patterns of sensory stimulation and on the momentary interests of the perceiver. Figure-ground relationship is an important element of the way we organise reality in our awareness, including works of art. Poets may rely on our habitual figure-ground organisations in extra-linguistic reality to exploit our flexibility in shifting attention from one aspect to another so as to achieve certain poetic effects by inducing us to reverse the habitual figure-ground relationships. This flexibility has precedent in music and the visual arts. Works by Escher,

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Gestalt qualities in poetry and the reader's absorption style

Cited by 15 publications

References 5 publications

“Softened” voice quality in poetry reading and listener response

“Softened” voice quality in poetry reading and listener response

Untitled

Metaphor and figure-ground relationship: comparisons from poetry, music, and the visual arts

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