Poetry and Imagined Worlds - Hardcover

by Olga V. Lehmann (Editor), Nandita Chaudhary (Editor), Ana Cecilia Bastos (Editor)

Brings together international scholars from the fields of psychology, creativity and literature

Looks into the challenging question of how the arts and poetry in particular is used in human decision making and our search for meaning

Focuses on contemporary challenges in these areas

Back Jacket

This book explores the deep, imaginative, and creative power of poetry as part of the human experience. How poetry provides insight into human psychology is a question at the beginning of its theoretical development, and is a constant challenge for cultural psychologists and the humanities alike. Poetry functions, in all ages and cultures, as a rite that merges the beauty, truth and the unbearable conditions of existence. Both the general and the particular can be found in its expression. Collectively the authors aim to evoke a holistic understanding of what poetry conveys about decision making and the human search for meaning. This ground-breaking collection will be indispensable to scholars of clinical and theoretical psychology, philosophy, anthropology, literature, aesthetics and sociology.

Author Biography

Olga V. Lehmann researches at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway.
Nandita Chaudhary is Associate Professor at the University of Delhi, India.
Ana Cecilia Bastos is Professor at the Catholic University of Salvador and Federal University of Bahia, Brazil.
Emily Abbey is a Professor in the Department of Psychology at Ramapo College of New Jersey, USA.