Preface to the First Edition --
Preface to the Second Edition --
Acknowledgments --
A Note on Transliteration --
General Assumptions. The Nature of Cognitive Poetics --
Mental and Vocal Performance in Poetry Reading --
Constructing a Stable World --
Poetic Structure and Percieved Qualities --
The Sound Stratum of Poetry. Rhyme Patterns, Gestalt Theory, and Perceptual Forces --
Metre and Rhythm --
Delivery Style and Listener Response --
an Empirical Study --
Expressiveness and Musicality of Speech Sounds --
The Units-of-Meaning Stratum. Semantic Representation and Information Processing --
Literary Synaesthesia --
The World Stratum. The Representative Anecdote: Human Contingency --
Regulative Concepts. The Versatile Reader: Style as Open Concept --
Style as a Diagnosis and as Hypothesis --
Practical Application: The Ballad "Edward" --
Archetypal Patterns --
Poetry of Orientation & Disorientation. Space Perception and Poetry of Orientation --
Poetry of Disorientation --
The Grotesque as an Aesthetic Mode --
Poetry of Altered States of Consciousness. Poetry and Altered States of Consciousness --
Obtrusive Rhythms and Emotive Crescendo --
The Divergent Passage and Ecstatic Poetry --
Critics and Criticism. The Implied Critic's Decision Style --
The Critic's Mental Dictionary --
Cognitive Poetics and Cognitive Linguistics. Lakoff's Roads Not Taken --
Deixis in Literature: What Isn't Cognitive Poetics? --
Comparing Approaches to Versification Style in Cyrano de Bergerac --
References --
Index.