Mind and World in Literary Modernism: Cognition and Experience in D. H. Lawrence, Katherine Mansfield, T. S. Eliot, and Virginia Woolf

This thesis examines the relation between cognition and experience in D. H. Lawrence, Katherine Mansfield, T. S. Eliot, and Virginia Woolf. Drawing new perspectives from cognitive science, this thesis complicates the long-established critique of modernism's ‘inward turn’. I ask: does depicting interior experiences entail the view that the mind is an isolated domain separated from the outside world? What is the relationship between the external and internal world that the modernists are seeking to portray? I argue that the writers depict inner life as an interaction between the mind and the external world: they are interested in how mental states arise from our perception of the world. This research looks at the idiosyncratic ways in which each writer confronts an inner-outer boundary that is inevitable yet necessary to shaping selfhood. The approach of this doctoral study is inspired by cognitive literary studies, an interdisciplinary approach to literature that takes insights from cognitive science. Recent developments in cognitive science have given us new vocabulary and paradigms in re-considering the modernist conception of the mind; in turn, the discussed narratives offer rich accounts of how the mind experiences the world. By placing modernist literature in dialogue with contemporary cognitive research, this dissertation aims to demonstrate that the two fields could illuminate each other to offer important insights into human cognition. Each chapter pairs an author with a specific cognitive process. For Lawrence, the psychological life is bound to bodily experiences. Reading his work in the light of enactivism, I argue that his embodied boundary must be set as a division between the individual and the world. The second chapter on Mansfield looks at her depiction of emotion as an inevitable and crucial part of cognitive processes. Understanding her stories through the lens of cognitive appraisal theories and existential feeling sheds light on how emotion relates to the interior and exterior worlds of her characters. For Eliot, the mind seeks connection with the external through voices. I consider the dynamic exchange of his rich poetic voices, proposing that Eliot’s search for a coherent self-concept lies in listening to the external voices that echo across the boundary. The final chapter examines the various ways in which Woolf explores the movement of the mind. Her depiction of wandering thoughts shows that they are vital in maintaining and creating self-narratives. Modernist literature, by no means, conveys an inward experience of mental life. The considered writers have demonstrated that what is real is not the outer world itself, but what our inner world makes of the outer.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

Doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

University of Cambridge

Year dc:date.issued

2025

Author dc:creator

• Koo, Gwenda

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Lyne, Raphael

• cognition
• cognitive literary studies
• D. H. Lawrence
• Katherine Mansfield
• mind
• modernism
• psychology
• T. S. Eliot
• Virginia Woolf

Licence

• https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/adc6f88c-88bf-4c11-9f93-7224961ce26b/download
• http://purl.org/NET/rdflicense/allrightsreserved

Language dc:language

eng

DOI dc:identifier.doi

https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.127489

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.repository.cam.ac.uk:1810/398679