What is it about?
Whitman uses the meditative catalog to depict and convey his subjective experiences to the reader. We argue that this type of catalog is a poetic realization of the meditative technique of mindfulness. In analyzing examples of such a catalog, using a cognitive-poetic approach, one can illuminate both the process of mindfulness and its literary depiction. Apart from being a depiction of ongoing perceptual experience, one especially involving the visual, auditory and olfactory senses, the catalog also presents instances of physiognomic perception and other syncretic phenomena. It is from the poet's detailed depiction of his own subjective experience that one can glean insight into the meditative experience.
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Why is it important?
This paper should be read together with our earlier one: Goodblatt, C., & Glicksohn, J. (1986). Cognitive psychology and Whitman's 'Song of Myself'. Mosaic, 19, 83-90.
Perspectives
In continuation of our article published in Mosaic, we extend our analysis of Walt Whitman's meditative catalog, reflecting on both the structure and the content of depicted experience as one that can invoke in the reader a somewhat similar meditative experience. This is a neat example of cognitive poetics, informed by both literary and cognitive analyses.
Professor Joseph Glicksohn
Bar-Ilan University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: The Poetics of Meditation: Whitman's Meditative Catalog, Imagination Cognition and Personality, September 1989, SAGE Publications,
DOI: 10.2190/d37j-p7ue-tu96-g45h.
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