Cognitive Literary Science: Dialogues Between Literature and Cognition ed. by Michael Burke, Emily T. Troscianko (review)

Cognitive Literary Studies is gradually making its mark on the publishing world with a growing number of theoretical works that blend scientific approaches with the practice of literary theory. To some extent, this slowly emerging current could even be construed as the missing link, if not the ideal interface, between science and the humanities. At the crossroads of these two areas of study, Cognitive Literary Studies offers an extraordinary opportunity to bridge the “gulf of mutual incomprehension” between literary intellectuals and scientists, one that C.P. Snow famously identified in the wake of World War II.¹ Perhaps, along the way, this polymorphous field could even share “the excitement of connecting scientific principles with a love of literature” (Stockwell 11).