Cognitive Confusions
Dreams, Delusions and Illusions in Early Modern Culture

Edited by Ita Mac Carthy, Kirsti Sellevold and Olivia Smith

Legenda (General Series)

Legenda

13 February 2017  •  200pp

ISBN: 978-1-909662-99-5 (hardback)  •  RRP £80, $110, €95

ISBN: 978-1-781883-42-6 (paperback, 30 September 2018)  •  RRP £10.99, $14.99, €13.49

ISBN: 978-1-781883-43-3 (JSTOR ebook)

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A distinctively human aspect of the mind is its ability to handle both factual and counterfactual scenarios. This brings enormous advantages, but we are far from infallible in monitoring the boundaries between the real, the imaginary and the pathological. In the early modern period, particularly, explorations of the mind's ability to roam beyond the factual became mainstream. It was an age of perspective art, anamorphism and optical illusions; of prophecy, apocalyptic dreams, and visions; and of fascination with the supernatural.

This volume takes a fresh look at early modern understandings of how to distinguish reality from dream, or delusion from belief. Opening with cognitivist and philosophical perspectives, Cognitive Confusions then examines test cases from across European literature, providing an original documentation of the mind in its most creative and pathological states.

Reviews:

  • ‘Cognition-centered scholarship is here, and Dreams, Delusions and Illusions in Early Modern Culture is a welcome new contribution... I found myself wanting to dialogue with each of these writers... they enter into essential new investigations into the diversity of our cognitive experiences.’ — Donald Beecher, Renaissance Quarterly 71.1, 2018, 267-69
  • ‘Sustained and intensive collaboration is evident in the collection, where every chapter displays a profound and fruitful engagement with cognitive psychology and philosophy that illuminates both early modern literary texts and contemporary science... These essays are thought-provoking, rigorous, and inventive themselves, and as exemplary models of properly collaborative research should interest early modernists, literary scholars, and other researchers into cognition.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 54.3, July 2018, 372

Contents:

ix-xii

Preface
Ita Mac Carthy, Kirsti Sellevold, Olivia Smith
doi:10.2307/j.ctv16km1n8.3

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1-14

Introduction
Terence Cave
doi:10.2307/j.ctv16km1n8.4

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15-36

Chapter 1 Reverse Othello Syndrome By Another Name: Ariosto’s Deluded Hero
Ita Mac Carthy
doi:10.2307/j.ctv16km1n8.5

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37-52

Chapter 2 What Makes A Belief Delusional?
Ita Mac Carthy, Kirsti Sellevold, Olivia Smith
doi:10.2307/j.ctv16km1n8.6

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53-70

Chapter 3 Cognition, Relevance and Early Modern Ghosts
Timothy Chesters
doi:10.2307/j.ctv16km1n8.7

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71-88

Chapter 4 A World Within: the Devil, Delusions and Early Modern Cognition
Thibaut Maus de Rolley
doi:10.2307/j.ctv16km1n8.8

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89-110

Chapter 5 Delusion, Drowsiness and Discernment: Degrees of Awareness in Renaissance Dream Activity
Guido Giglioni
doi:10.2307/j.ctv16km1n8.9

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111-124

Chapter 6 Others’ Dreams, Others’ Minds in Descartes’s Meditations
James Helgeson
doi:10.2307/j.ctv16km1n8.10

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125-146

Chapter 7 Fiction, Vision, Dream, Revelation: D’aubigné’s Tragiques and the Ocean Episode
Kathryn Banks
doi:10.2307/j.ctv16km1n8.11

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147-162

Chapter 8 ‘Imagine This Place’: Doni’s Utopian Dream
Kirsti Sellevold
doi:10.2307/j.ctv16km1n8.12

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163-179

Chapter 9 Unstill Life: the Uses of Illusion in Hans Holbein’s the Ambassadors
Olivia Smith
doi:10.2307/j.ctv16km1n8.13

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180-188

Index
Ita Mac Carthy, Kirsti Sellevold, Olivia Smith
doi:10.2307/j.ctv16km1n8.14

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Bibliography entry:

Carthy, Ita Mac, Kirsti Sellevold, and Olivia Smith (eds), Cognitive Confusions: Dreams, Delusions and Illusions in Early Modern Culture (Legenda, 2017)

First footnote reference: 35 Cognitive Confusions: Dreams, Delusions and Illusions in Early Modern Culture, ed. by Ita Mac Carthy, Kirsti Sellevold and Olivia Smith (Legenda, 2017), p. 21.

Subsequent footnote reference: 37 Carthy, Sellevold, and Smith, p. 47.

(To see how these citations were worked out, follow this link.)

Bibliography entry:

Carthy, Ita Mac, Kirsti Sellevold, and Olivia Smith (eds). 2017. Cognitive Confusions: Dreams, Delusions and Illusions in Early Modern Culture (Legenda)

Example citation: ‘A quotation occurring on page 21 of this work’ (Carthy, Sellevold, and Smith 2017: 21).

Example footnote reference: 35 Carthy, Sellevold, and Smith 2017: 21.

(To see how these citations were worked out, follow this link.)


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