A Case Study on the Personal Pronouns in John Ashbery’s Poem “A Blessing in Disguise”: A Cognitive Poetic Perspective
Abstract
This paper presents a cognitive perspective towards one of John Ashbery’s poems. Though the frequent shift between different pronouns in his poem has posed a lot of challenges to readers, the present article holds that it can be effectively interpreted via resonance theory that addresses the cognitive rationality and motivation of the reading process. This paper aims to underscore the cognitive effects aroused by pronouns (being marked as attractors) and discover the cognitive motivation behind such processes. Taking his short poem “A Blessing in Disguise” as an example, the paper examines the resonant possibilities underlying the confusing shuttling between “you” and “I,” finding that he appropriates the multi-reference of the two pronouns to unfold the pluralism of reality, which in turn contributes to the plurality of readings upon his poem. Thus the interrelations between the text and readers’ mind process are consolidated via attractors by which the resonance is activated.
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