A Cognitive Study Of Images In Li Yu’s Poems

Image,as an important concept in literary works,is often taken as the essence of Chinese classical poetry,which plays the role of bridge of the word and its meaning.It is believed that the word originates from and signifies image while the meaning that the image connotates is the ultimate goal.However,traditional studies on images rarely explore the cognitive mechanisms of interactions among these three elements.In view of this,based on Conceptual Metaphor Theory and Image Schema Theory,this paper selects thirty-six poems of Li Yu,the famous ancient Chinese poet and emperor of the Southern Tang Dynasty,to explore the conceptual metaphors and image schema underlying his image system.By identifying the systematic metaphorical projections between the images and the abstract conceptual domains,the paper analyzes how image schema helps to organize the embodied experience and trigger the metaphorical projections from the physical space to the abstract and emotion concepts to understand the poet’s cognitive system and emotional connotation behind the images and reveal the application of the imagistic thinking in Li Yu’s poems.It is found that the main images in Li Yu’s poems are connected with each other,making up different image groups which thereafter form an image system.The main images can be classified into natural images and humanistic images.In natural images,the flower image is more prominent,reflecting the mapping between flowers and females under the conceptual metaphor FLOWERS ARE FEMALES,which derives from the root metaphor PLANTS ARE PEOPLE.The conceptual metaphors embodied in the high-frequency humanistic images include LIFE IS A DREAM,HAPPINESS IS THE ROLLING OF CURTAIN,SADNESS IS THE DROOPING OF CURTAIN and THE PASSING OF TIME IS THE BURNING OF INCENSE,and the latter three conceptual metaphors are extended from conventional conceptual metaphors HAPPINESS IS UP,SADNESS IS DOWN,and TIME IS A RESOURCE.It is also found that the image system of Li Yu’s poems mainly reflects four image schemata,that is,CYCLE Schema,SOURCE-PATH-GOAL Schema,NEAR-FAR Schema and CONTAINER Schema.In natural images,Li Yu’s selection and description of the flower’s postures are actually a portrayal of the poet’s self-image.The ups and downs of his own destiny are reflected through the life cycle of the flowers’ blooming and withering.Taking flowers as the subject and life as the object,his cognition and experience of life are manifested through mapping from the subject to the object.In humanistic images,the structural characteristics of the dream are mapped to life,and the poet’s life changes are perceived by comparing the scenes in the dream and out of the dream,which also demonstrates the poet’s cognition and experience of life.The mapping of the curtain image shows that the construction of abstract conceptions and emotions is based on human’s most basic embodied interaction with the material world.At the same time,images such as“curtain”,“window”,“attic” and “railing” correspond to three levels of the Container Schema—a room,a courtyard and a bigger container from near to far,which are used to construct the poet’s basic cognition about space.In addition,the incense image reflects the poet’s basic cognition and perception of time.Through the cognitive analysis of the images in Li Yu’s poems,it is found that images are interconnected to construct Li Yu’s unique image system.The image schema in the image system motivate the metaphorical creation,making the abstract concepts and emotions understood in terms of more delineated and concrete experience.The conceptual metaphor and image schema underlying the image system embody the poet’s basic perception and cognition about time,space and life.A large number of images in Li Yu’s poems,through their superposition and transformation,make up the insufficiency of“word” in expressing “meaning”,weaken the conceptual characteristics of the word,and make the poems more poetic,demonstrating the operation of imagistic thinking.