Preface

How are meanings constructed by critics and readers? Why are there contradictory interpretations to one novel and how shall we evaluate them? This book dedicates to answering these questions and attempts to provide a cognitive poetic model of literary interpretation based on mapping theory in cognitive science and cognitive linguistics. This model attempts to integrate literary criticism with metaphoric, symbolic and allegorical mappings for literary interpretation.

Moby-Dick is the first Great American Novel (GAN). Although the novel was written 160 years ago, the questions that Melville posed are the issues that vex the contemporary world such as relationships between human beings and the environment, racial and social injustices, gender and homosexuality, psychological alienation, etc. Literary critics of these trends can find their own answers in Moby-Dick. However, these answers differ so much that they are in conflict with each other. Some eco-critics deem it an eco-centric novel but others think it anthropocentric. Social political critics often find it controversial on whether it represents a democratic egalitarianism or autocratic totalitarianism. It is also controversial on whether there is homosexual eroticism in the novel for queer theorists.

Metaphor, symbol and allegory are critical to the interpretation of Moby-Dick. Cognitive linguistics has explored the mapping of metaphor profoundly, but seldom touched upon the mapping process of symbol and allegory. This book differentiates metaphoric, symbolic and allegorical mapping and concludes that metaphoric mapping activates two domains that reflect the relationship between human beings and nature, upper class and lower class, heterosexual and homosexual relationship or others in Moby-Dick. Symbolic mapping projects the symbols into the outer referential world according to literary critics’ concern and forms an allegorical reading. It is by association, analogical mapping, structural alignment and blending that a new reading comes into being. Overall, mapping plays a key role in the whole process. This book explores the mapping of metaphors, symbols and allegories from the eco-critical, social political and queer theory’s perspectives taking readers, text and social cultural context into consideration. The validity of these readings can be judged by whether the metaphors are coherent, whether the symbols are systematic and whether the allegories are consistent. In this way, reader, text and social cultural context are integrated. The model can also be used to analyzing other literary works.