Abstract
Research on image schemas in language and cognition (containment, path, blockage, etc.) is largely based on de-contextualized linguistic expressions. This results in a view of image schemas as somehow detached from experience, constituting source domains for fixed conceptual projections from the concrete to the abstract. By showcasing creative examples of the poetics of containment throughout the long diachrony of Greek poetry, this article proposes that image schemas reflect the early attentional preferences of the human mind. These central features of image schemas are further selected for their suitability to create ad-hoc, non-perceptual meanings. Templates for conceptual integration involving image schemas also offer coherent patterns of variation, which opportunistically exploit arising connections with culture, context, and goals. Understanding the role of image schemas in meaning construction and verbal art requires the study of both the entrenched patterns and the know-how associated to their usage.
Acknowledgements
The research for this article was carried out as part of the project Cognition, Creativity, and Culture in the Verbal Representation of Emotions (http://www.unav.edu/en/web/instituto-cultura-y-sociedad/discurso-publico/emoccc), funded by an early-career award from the BBVA Foundation. For their invaluable feedback and support, I thank Jean Mandler and Mark Turner, as well as Douglas Cairns, Miranda Anderson, Mark Sprevak, and all the participants in the workshops of the AHRC project A History of Distributed Cognition at the University of Edinburgh. Also my fellow-colleagues at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at the University of Edinburgh.
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