Consciousness, Literature and the Arts
Archive
Volume 13 Number 2, August 2012
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Cook, Amy, Shakespearean Neuroplay: Reinvigorating the Study of Dramatic Texts and Performance through Cognitive Science. New York, Palgrave Macmillan,2010. 205pp, ISBN 978-0230-10547-8.
Reviewed by
Middle East Technical University
Amy Cook’s “mind activating” book consists of Six Chapters and a Conclusion. The Beginning Chapter with the title “Who’s There” forms an introduction to the work. Since the book focuses on Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet, the title of the First Chapter is therefore a fitting question being the very first line of Hamlet. Amy Cook challenges the reader with this critical question since she deals with intricate matters related to the variety of unknowns concerning the mind. Hamlet being a play of the troubled minds lends itself to an analysis by the aid of the Cognitive Science tools. In the First Chapter, Amy Cook establishes clearly her stance by informing the reader where she will focus her analysis while she takes the reader on an “interdisciplinary “ journey during which cognitive linguistics and cognitive science will answer critical questions. She points out the new metaphor of the brain as “an embodied and creative entity” as opposed to “a computer”. Her tools of analysis are “the conceptual metaphor theory” of the cognitive linguist George Lakoff and “the conceptual blending theory” of Gilles Fauconnier.
Chapter 1 being an interrogative introduction to the book contains significant questions such as: “What is the cognitive structure of drama and performance?”, “What does Conceptual Blending Theory (CBT) offer that a traditional close reading does not?”, “How does Conceptual Blending Theory (CBT) inform our understanding of the literary, technological, and conceptual structure of Shakespeare’s mirror?”. This is a Chapter that signals what is going to happen in the following chapters.
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Chapter 2 focuses on Conceptual Blending Theory (CBT) and its three important elements such as “mental spaces”, “compression”, and “vital relations” that will be essential in understanding a performance. Amy Cook emphasizes the fact that Conceptual Blending Theory (CBT) is interested in HOW meaning is made. In this Chapter Amy Cook also provides the example of Hamlet in a very different culture in West Africa and its reception there.
Chapter 3 focuses on Hamlet’s “mirror” which as an object immediately makes the mind wonder about refletion, refraction, and illusions that can be created by such an image in a play. Here, Amy Cook states the function of Conceptual Blending Theory and how it will be a mind-opening tool “to explain the densely poetic and the seemingly simple” as is the case in the play Hamlet and Hamlet’s “mirror”. Useful information about mirror technology is provided as well, to show how the meanings of technological devices change as technological developments advance. Hence, the information on the development of mirror-making. Amy Cook in this Chapter through Hamlet’s “mirror blend” points out the importance of seeing and how seeing is knowing and she presents Lakoff’s Idealized Cognitive Model (ICM) outline for seeing.
In Chapter 4, Amy Cook aids the reader by clearly presenting what the Chapet will offer. The Chapter claims that Hamlet “can be productively read using Conceptual Blending Theory”. In this Chapter, Amy Cook makes use of “ a radio story “ about performing Hamlet. This is a striking Chapter since it is about the way Cognitive Linguistics can link Shakespeare Study and Performance Study. The key words in this Chapter are “blending theory”, “creation”, “constraining”.
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Similarly in Chapter 5, Amy Cook mentions what Conceptual Blending Theory aims to understand. She also states how theatre practitioners and scholars can benefit from Blending Theory to improve staging plays since she is concerned about Cognitive Theories of Linguistics and Perception. Thus Conceptual Blending Theory provides a methodology.
In Chapter 6, Amy Cook offers more thought provoking questions about HOW “we know what we think we know”. So looking is not enough. Making sense of what is seen must be analyzed. The emphasis is on the interdependence of scientific experiment on theatrical performance and vice versa.
In the Conclusion part of the book the startling question of the First Chapter, “Who’s There?” finally reaches the “Dying Voice”. Again the emphasis is on HOW Shakespeare means what he means rather than just what he means and Conceptual Blending Theory provides the very tool for observing “the process of meaning making”. Amy Cook finds it advisable for theatre scholars and scientists to collaborate in order to conduct “empirical research”.
Throughout the book, a lot of authorities have been mentioned in relation to Cognitive Science and looking at dramatic texts and performance through “new eyes”. Amy Cook provides a detailed Notes Section though a bibliography is missing. The key words are “blending”, “embodied”, “embedded” since “all language is embodied”. Using the play Hamlet was most appropriate since it forms a relevant illustration of what language can do and how it can be used and how an individual’s mind is operating and in a way “staging” a performance.
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This book is definitely a useful book for learning about “Cognitive Science” and its possible applications in theatre as literature and theatre as performance. Therefore, it is an indispensable guide for theatre people including literary critics and even English teachers as well as cognitive linguists, cognitive scientists, neuroscientists, neurophilosophers, sociologists, psychologists,anthropologists to master an interdisciplinary aprroach to conduct scientific reserach more accurately, efficiently, and productively.
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