An Analysis Of Ryan’s Possible World Theory In Bishop’s Poems

Possible World concept was first proposed by the German philosopher Leibniz, He thinks the world is likely a combination of things, the real world is composed of all possible combinations of things that exist, possible things may have different combinations, and some combinations are more perfect than others. So there are many possible worlds in which we can become like time, space and matter, can have different shapes and movement. With the evolution and development of the possible world theory, Kripke and Lewis expanded the application of the doctrine of the theory, there is someone who proposed the theory to the analysis of poetry, and Ryan also made the possible world theory to the analysis of poetry. She noted that they all can be possible world theory except some fictional narrative lyric poetry and fiction.Possible world theory is a new perspective with cognitive poetic in literary works. T he literature section of the discourse can be divided into three worlds in cognitive poetic theory. The first level is discourse world which is the most basic. Participants can be not only short-distance, but also long-distance; not only can be contemporary but also can cross the ancient and modern times. Participants will analyze and integrate the discourse events in their own mind, which forming a mental representation of the characteristics of the participants, it is called the text world and this is the second level. Then the text world began to develop, constructing a variety of different possible worlds which belong to the builders, it is the third level. When reading poetry, the discourse world refers to the poetry itself constructed by the author, then based on the content of the text world, the author thinks, analyze and understand works on theme, characters, plot, etc. Thus forming a possible world in author’s mind. Narrative character exists in the real world in the narrative poem, but also through their dreams, hopes, wishes and other mental activities to build self-inner world, therefore, Ryan divided the text world of the possible world into knowledge world, wish world, obligation world, intention world and fantasy world.The text is analyzed in the perspective of possible world theory by choosing a representative selection of poetry. Although domestic thesis may use many possible world theories, but most of them are analyzed and written from the point of view of the feminist, narrative and psychology, so far, very few persons use cognitive poetic to analyze the possible world theory. For example, in this article, I chose Bishop’s poetry from the point of view of possible world theory in cognitive poetry. There are some common images in Elizabeth Bishop poems to represent the inner world, it is also used to describe the inner feelings of people and things. On the basis of the text world about belief, expectations, plans, obligations, aspirations and imagination, and a detailed analysis of various poems related to the main character in cognitive possible worlds, including the knowledge world, the plan world obligation world, desire world and fantasy world. From these possible worlds, we can know that knowledge world is the basis of further development of mental activity of persons. Knowledge world is the corner stone of the world, it is the foundation. Therefore, knowledge world are prepared for plan and intention world, in which not all things are developed perfectly. Frustration or success in intention or plan world, so leading to further destruction of aspirations world, resulting in fantasy, then fantasy world is formed. I use possible world’s theory to analyze the cognitive poetry in order to analyze the character completely.