Cognitive Analysis Of Pastoral Poetry Based On Figure And Ground Theory

The development and interpenetration of cognitive linguistics and literature research brings out a new interdiscipline—cognitive poetics. Cognitive poetics means to explore the relationship between literature structures, language choices and literature effects from the perspective of psychological cognitive process and law. As a basic and powerful theory in cognitive poetics, figure and ground theory roots in the visual perception researches conducted by gestalt psychologists. According to the figure and ground theory,"figure" is "foreground" standing out from the other objects which processes complete structure and is capable of attracting viewer’s attention. On the contrary, the object that retreats to the "background" to set the foreground off is called "ground". Generally speaking, figures have certain forms or structures and good coherence, while grounds fail to possess shapes and coherence. In addition, based on the figure and ground segregation which is the core of prominent view, figures are more prominent than ground and much easier to be distinguished and memorized. Figures have a close connection with the experience, emotion, motivation, interest and needs of the percipients.Xie Lingyun and Tao Yuanming were among the first ones to write pastoral poetry. In Tang Dynasty, Wang Wei and Meng Haoran reached the peak of the development of the pastoral poetry. Pastoral poetry describes the natural scenery, country life and comfortable reclusion. In pastoral poetry, poets made their complaints of the reality and desire for tranquility, meanwhile, the discourse features of Chinese pastoral poetry ensure that they can be analyzed by figure and ground theory.Based on figure and ground theory, this paper illustrates the pastoral poetry by Wang Wei and Meng Haoran in terms of picture composition, poets’emotion and dynamic effect. By adopting figure and ground theory, we can accurately and systematically analyze what is happening during readers’reading process rather than the impressionistic reading. In addition, it verifies the explanatory power of figure and ground theory from the perspective of disclosing readers’psychological process while reading and provides a new angle for the future poetry research.This paper has been divided into five chapters. The first chapter is introduction which introduces the content, purpose and structure of the paper. The second chapter is literature review that includes the review of the researches on figure and ground theory and the appreciation of Chinese pastoral poetry from home and abroad. Theoretical framework has been put in the third chapter which comprehensively illustrates figure and ground theory. Chapter four is the core of this paper which analyzes pastoral poetry of Wang Wei and Mcng Haoran from the perspective of figure and ground theory, meanwhile, reveals readers’ cognitive process and psychological feelings during the reading process. Chapter five is conclusion which briefly explains how figure and ground theory works, the significance and the limitation of this paper.This research shows that the dynamic movement through reading can be understood as the process of "figure" and "ground" segregation. It reveals readers’cognitive process and psychological feelings during the reading process and proves the explanatory power of figure and ground theory.