Brain of Robert Frost

Originally published in 1988this book brings brain science to literary criticism. The Brain of Robert Frost combines psychoanalysis with the findings of brain research and cognitive psychology to model the way we create and respond to literature. Norman Holland draws three central ideas from ‘the mind’s new science’: the critical ‘supercharged’ period in infancy when individuality is formed; the binding of emotion to intellect deep in the old brain; the top-down inside-outfeedback processing of language in the new.Then using Robert Frost as an example both of a writer and a reader and comparing Frost’s reading of a poem to readings by six professors of literature Holland builds a new powerful way of thinking about literary criticism and teaching.A book about literary cognitionThe Brain of Robert Frost furthers our understanding of the reading process of poet’s brainsand of our own.