Language, cognition, and poetics of solitude in Dylan Thomas
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.36505/TheLinguisticProceedings/2025/17/02/019/000705Keywords:
stylistics, cognitive poetics, Dylan Thomas, isolation, metaphorAbstract
This paper presents a stylistic and cognitive-poetic analysis of Dylan Thomas’s poem “Ears in the Turrets Hear”, with particular attention to how linguistic form and literary imagination converge to represent artistic isolation and existential dilemma. The central aim is to investigate how cohesion, repetition, and parallelism interact with embodied metaphors and conceptual mappings to dramatize the poet’s oscillation between solitude and social contact. Drawing on stylistics and cognitive poetics—especially Text World Theory and Conceptual Metaphor Theory—the paper shows how linguistic patterning functions as both a textual and cognitive network, foregrounding recursive thought, hesitation, and the gradual negotiation of artistic identity.References
Gavins, J. 2007. Text World Theory: An Introduction. Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press.
Lakoff, G., Johnson, M. 1980. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago, University of Chicago Press.
Langacker, R.W. 2008. Cognitive Grammar: A Basic Introduction. Oxford, Oxford University Press.
Thomas, D. 1934 (or nd). ‘Ears in the Turrets Hear’. PoetryVerse. Retrieved 15 December 2025, from https://www.poetryverse.com/dylan-thomas-poems/ears-in-turrets-hear
Werth, P. 1999. Text Worlds: Representing Conceptual Space in Discourse. London, Longman.
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