BLENDS OF SEASONS AND MIND STYLES IN PLATH'S <SPINSTER> DANIELA SOREA UNIVERSITY OF BUCHAREST - ROMANIA 1.

Defining mind style The notion of mind style designates individual aspects of world-views arising from specific experience which become stored in specific, yet flexible cognitive matrices. Mind style involves cognitive structuring as well as affect, both of which bear their imprint on the degree of adjustment to what is commonly understood as normal or deviance from such assessments of normality. Unlike Fowler, who regards the notion of mind style as largely overlapping with that of ideological point of view, Semino opines that mind style is to do with how language reflects the particular conceptual structures and cognitive habits that characterise an individuals world view (2002: 97). For instance, each individual develops a specific mind style when it comes to conceptualising seasons. For those who enjoy practising skiing and skating, winter is a promising display of dazzling snow. For those who suffer from rheumatism or from arthritis, it is a source for physical deterioration and experiencing ailment. Semino points out that while ideology deals with social, cultural, political or religious beliefs and attitudes, likely to be shared among groups or communities of individuals, mind style is rather specific of each individual: The notion of mind style on the other hand, is most apt to capture those aspects of world views that are primarily personal and cognitive in origin, and which are either peculiar to a particular individual, or common to people who have the same cognitive characteristics (for example as a result of a similar mental illness or of a shared stage of cognitive development, as in the case of young children). These aspects include an individuals characteristic cognitive habits, abilities and limitations, and any beliefs and values that may arise from them (Semino 2002: 99).

In Seminos view, which I fully share, mind styles can be analysed in terms of three related yet only partially convergent cognitive views: a) cognitive schemata, as high order mental structures representing systematic and simplified clusters of knowledge about objects, events, persons, relationships b) metaphorical mappings, as cognitive transfers performed in order to conceptualise a target domain in terms of a source domain by setting systematic correspondences between entities pertaining to the two domains. Thus, in most European communities, INERTIA is mapped into the domain of WINTER, while REVIVAL is metaphorically transferred into the rebirth brought about by SPRING. c) networks of mental spaces or conceptual integration networks as transient cognitive representations, blending in the juxtaposition of two input spaces that temporarily blend in certain respects: Mental spaces are small conceptual packets constructed as we think and talk, for purposes of local understanding and action. They are interconnected, and can be modified as thought and discourse unfold. (Fauconnier and Turner 1998: 113) An example of blending would be the concomitant instantiation of the input spaces of seasons and moods. The generic space might include notions such as phenomena perceived by humans and bearing influence upon their behaviour and state of mind. The blend space is likely to display correspondences between the two input domains: vitality thus corresponds to the fretfulness of spring, numbness to the immobility of winter, ripeness and plenty to the thriving atmosphere of summer, dismay to the vegetal decay pertaining to autumn. There are several aspects shared by Fauconnier and Turners (1998) theory of 'blending', or 'conceptual integration' and by conceptual metaphor theory (CMT) in the Lakovian tradition. Both approaches treat metaphor as a conceptual rather than a purely linguistic phenomenon; both involve systematic projection of language, imagery and inferential structure between conceptual domains; both propose constraints on this projection. What makes the two approaches diverge is that while CMT relies on projection of entities between two mental representations, blending theory (BT) allows correspondences and

inferential patterns from and into several mental spaces. CMT allows correspondences and inferential patterning between two domains cognitively inculcated in human thought and expression. Consequently, blending theory or conceptual integration explains the production and comprehension of certain objects, events, emotions in terms of other material or spiritual entities in terms of conceptual networks consisting of four mental spaces.

These spaces include two input spaces (which, in a metaphorical case, are associated with the source and target of CMT [Conceptual Metaphor Theory]), plus a generic space, representing conceptual structure that is shared by both inputs, and the blend space, where material from the inputs combines and interacts. (Grady et al. 1999: 103) Given that metaphors are motivated by recurrent types of episodes which bring together particular dimensions of experience, CMT analyses involve mappings between precisely two conceptual structures. On the other hand, BT typically makes use of a four-space model. These spaces include two 'input' spaces (which, in a metaphorical case, are associated with the source and target of CMT), plus a 'generic' space, representing conceptual structure that is shared by both inputs, and the 'blend' space, where material from the inputs combines and interacts. The blend space is an emergent space since it comprises a scenario that does not conventionally and automatically arise from cross-domain correspondences, but is engendered by novel juxtapositions of features pertaining to two different input spaces. Salient elements the input spaces project fuse into a single element in the blended space despite their seemingly incompatible, sometimes even anomalous juxtaposition. The basic unit of cognitive organization is not the domain but the 'mental space' (Fauconnier and Turner 1998), a temporary representational structure comprehenders construct conceiving of a past, present, or future, hypothetical or fictional situation. Mental spaces are not equivalent to domains, they rather represent particular scenarios structured by given domains, or, otherwise put, short-term constructs informed by the more general and culturally stable knowledge structures associated with a specific domain.

2. Mind style and the conceptualisation of the Self

Dichotomies such as body/mind, reason/emotion, sacred/profane, male/female, pure/impure have underlain the conceptualisation of the Human Self for ages. Co-existing selves within one personhood by means of performativity is a postmodern conceptualisation espoused by scholars pertaining to a wide plethora of fields from feminist philosophy to Lacanian psychoanalysis and social constructionism. Blending theory or conceptual integration may further validate such approaches starting from Lakoffs paper on Multiple Selves: Im not Myself Today.... (1996) A primary distinction operated by Lakoff is that between Self and Subject. The Self is the locus of beliefs, plans, worldly cares, passions, and the body. On the other hand, the Subject is the locus of consciousness, control and judgement. The splitting of the Self feeds on the human tendency to vacillate between contradictory beliefs, to decide between alternative plans, to experience conflicting passions. In the light of Lakoffs Divided Person model (see Lakoff 1996: 102 in Fauconnier and Sweetser), in a normal state of consciousness, the Subject has control over the Self, considering that: (i) a person is an ensemble (containing one person, the Subject, and at least one other entity, a Self). (ii) (iii) (iv) the experiencing consciousness is the Subject the bodily and functional aspects of a person constitute a Self the relationship between Subject and Space is spatial: the Subject is normally either inside, in possession of, or above the Self. As I will point out in the sections to come, the poetic persona of Sylvia Plath is particularly rich in its display of split dichotomous selves, painful clashes alternating with the attainment of reconciliation. 3. The split-self as a prevalent mind style with Plat Researchers of Gothic imagery such as Dobbs (1977) and later on Wisker (2001) regard the split female self as a Gothic theme permeating Plaths poetry. In Wiskers view, Plath elaborates a domestic Gothic ecriture granting a lugubrious and absurdist tinge to the

depiction of traditional female roles, generally home-confined. While attempting to espouse a plurality of roles, Plath discloses painful ambiguities inherent in womens sexually and socially-constructed roles mother, wife, lover, whore, spinster, creative artist showing each to be a performative version of the self. In Plaths work the speaker is provocatively and dangerously self-aware, revealing, yet trapped by and collusive in the role and life paradoxes she exposes. Her poems explore split selves (Strumpet Song), mirror versions of self, alter egos, alternative roles for women (Two Sisters of Persephone, Spinster). Womens potential for flight and for making different choices are revealed as potentially dangerous for mothers and wives whose dependency on a family for their identity undercuts their ability to realise different life-choices (Wisker 2001:110) Plaths mind style in relation to the split female self revolves around the tension between abhorrence of the uncanny, of the umheimlich and complacence in the familiar. As Rose (1992) stresses, in Plaths poetry Imagery of split selves exposes the constructedness, the performativity of gendered roles, the oscillation between versions of self, showing in post-existentialist, postmodern fashion how ontological security is a tenuous construction (Rose 1992: xiii).

The poem Spinster displays a mind style that persuasively and minutely articulates such tension and the likely balance meant to annihilate it in terms of seasonal changes and temperature. Spinster Now this particular girl During a ceremonious April walk With her latest suitor Found herself, of a sudden, intolerably struck By the birds' irregular babel

And the leaves' litter. By this tumult afflicted, she Observed her lover's gestures unbalance the air, His gait stray uneven Through a rank wilderness of fern and flower. She judged petals in disarray, The whole season, sloven. How she longed for winter then! Scrupulously austere in its order Of white and black Ice and rock, each sentiment within border, And heart's frosty discipline Exact as a snowflake. But here - a burgeoning Unruly enough to pitch her five queenly wits Into vulgar motley A treason not to be borne. Let idiots Reel giddy in bedlam spring: She withdrew neatly. And round her house she set Such a barricade of barb and check Against mutinous weather As no mere insurgent man could hope to break With curse, fist, threat Or love, either.

Conceptualising human needs and emotions in terms of seasonal changes is not a novel imagistic and verbal juxtaposition. The cognitive and cultural associations commonly drawn between temperature and mood are equally experientially-grounded, since most humans are weather-sensitive and their state of mind is likely to vary in compliance with meteorological switches. More often than not people tend to associate winter with hibernation, inertia, passiveness, spring with awakening, revival, outburst of life and energy, summer with plentifulness, abundance and thriving, and autumn with decay, energetic drainage and a proclivity for depression. This claim will be substantiated in the next section, by discussing certain ontological correspondences set forth by Melnick s survey (2001), where notions such as hot and cold have come to be associated with a wide range of human emotions, attitudes and reactions as interpersonal attributes. 4. Temperature, environment and human states of mind Inspired by psychoanalysis and seeking substantiation in cognitive approaches to language use and comprehension, Melnick explains the experiential grounding of the commonest associations humans make, i.e. between physical entities such as temperature and texture (hard/soft) and interactions between humans and their environment, i.e. (un)pleasant experiences, difficult/easy tasks, indifferent/affection-laden attitudes: Very often, as thinkers prior to Lakoff and Johnson had also noticed, we use metaphor to understand something abstract in terms of something physical. It is natural, therefore, that we should apply the four physical terms "cold," "warm," "hard," and "soft" to more abstract domains. Since, for example, physically soft surfaces are comfortable and hard ones uncomfortable, we sometimes use "hard" and "cold" and their synonyms to express comfort and discomfort in a moral or psychological sense, as in the expressions "a hard blow" (referring to a misfortune) or "softening the blow" or "hard luck." (Melnick 2001:7)

If "cold" and "hard" may be normally associated in physics, they occur in opposition extends when it comes to personality traits and interhuman relations, facilitating effortless understanding of a sentence like "He was a cold-hearted man, but his marriage to a warm and loving woman made him less obdurate."

Findings in physics reveal that liquidity indicates softness while solidity undoubtedly signals hardness. Hence two directions of conceptualising human moods and attitudes: coldness suggests insensitivity, warmth suggests flexibility, affection, capacity for love and compassion. Furthermore, cold objects are clearly delineated as most solid bodies are, while warm bodies are fuzzier, less precisely shaped, tending to dissipate since warmth unavoidably results in liquidifying bodies. This recurrent line of conceptualisation yields the following line of inferencing: HARD IS RELIABLE, because one can grasp hard bodies easily given their accurate contour, and WARM IS UNRELIABLE, given the slippery aspect of most liquid bodies. Because it keeps its shape; "solid" is likely to be systematically associated to

unchanging; consequently to safe; consequently permanent. (as in "Diamonds are forever"). Hence the metaphor HARD IS RELIABLE. Because liquids are imprecise and borderless, incomprehensible events or situations are often depicted as murky, foggy, hazy. The idea that cold implies solidity and hardness, and that increasing heat brings about the two (softer) states of the liquid and the gaseous is, of course, one of the principles of everyday physics that we began with. One of its consequences that is especially relevant to the domain of intellectual qualities has to do with the edges or borders of things. For the harder things are, the more fixed their edges are. So long as a block of ice does not melt, its borders remain precisely as they are. But the borders of a quantity of water are not permanent. They adapt (as is the case with liquids, by definition) to whatever container the water is in. It does remain possible, however, so long as the container is not porous, to discern where the water ends and its surroundings begin. Steam is a more extreme case, being (as gases are by definition) so diffuse that it is usually not possible even to demarcate its borders (Melnick 2001: 11). Clear-cut borders are likely to trigger precise reasoning, while fuzziness of contour is likely to foster flurried fantasies. The opposition between the solid state implied by "cool" and the state in-between liquid and gas designated by "seething" highlights how reason" is comprehended as cool, whereas "fantasies" are linked with "seething brains." . Consequently, reasoning is seen as cold and therefore as solid, and thus (via SOLID IS GOOD) as something to praiseworthy, whereas the opposed quality of imagination is conceived of as hot and therefore airy. Hardness of reason exploits an equivalence of the kind COLD IS

COMPREHENSIBLE, because it is precisely bounded and clearly delimited, together with WARM IS INCOMPREHENSIBLE because it tends to be associated with the misty domain of emotions and indeterminacy of borders in relation to affect. As a rule, hardness tends to be associated to vigour while softness entails languour. Thus, coldness and solidity tend to be associated with male attributes, revolving around the central feature of penetrativeness, while warmth and liquidity tend to be linked with female characteristics, springing out of the prevalent trait of receptivity. Gender-related traits are minutely discussed by Melnick: if male brings to mind coolness, hardness, solidity, it has come to be unawarely associated with coolheaded, logical reasoning and purposeful, justified action. On the other hand, female is most often than not associated with warmth, softness, dampness, consequently with the locus of emotional outbursts, of affective fluctuation and a capacity for commiseration and empathy. 5. The blend space of temperature and mood in Plaths Spinster Alongside the above-discussed correspondences between temperature and mood as analysed by Melnick (2001), Plaths Spinster could be regarded as unveiling a mind style illustrative of the interconnectedness between cold as encompassed in a season, winter, reason as encompassed in the wintry landscape and spinsterhood as definable by a social icon of rigour, orderliness and seclusion. The poet acknowledges yet discards the network of associations achievable between warm as included in spring, since she relinquishes the emotion diffused by the disarray featuring the lovers courtship. She regards such practices as chaos-generating, especially during spring, a season of futile fret. The rejection of the beloved is justified as a refusal to indulge in brittleness and foolishness. The contrast between cold and warm is indicative of the rational and respectively emotional conflicting sides of Plaths split self, divided between the constraints imposed by reason and structure and the temptation of enamouring giddiness and explosive bliss. Plath draws expectation-challenging associative networks of verbal and imagistic connections between the input spaces temperature and mood, which dismantle commonplace associations between spring and revival, youthfulness and mirth one the one hand, and winter and suspension of life, inertia and immobility on the other, Thus, as the structure of the two Input Spaces shows, mood in I1 corresponds to season in I2. Winter correlates with sanity while spring correlates with insanity. The lover in I1 likely to influence ones mood is tracked down to the passer-by in I2. The two input spaces create a GS

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encompassing the following elements: entity/phenomenon undergoing change, unexpected shifts, agent/natural cause, evolution of psyche/walk. The GS heavily relies on the commonplace conceptualization of evolution of human personality mapped into advance across a particular field or a journey undertaken through a specific territory. At a more detailed analysis of the two input spaces, the winter constituent in I2 is projected into the Subject in I1, exhibiting characteristics such as sanity, order and finiteness. Simultaneously, the spring constituent in I2 maps on into the insanity, chaos and filth that feature the Self. Such projections obviously exploit the mappings previously discussed by Melnick: COLD/HARD IS FINITE, HARD IN RELIABLE as opposed to WARM/SOFT IS FUZZY and WARM/SOFT IS UNRELIABLE. Concomitantly, the projections emerging from the comprehension of spinster challenge the frequent mappings of COLD IS MALE and WARM IS FEMALE. As highlighted in the lines to come, Plath contests such mappings while presenting a Subject that strives coherently and systematically to be governed by reason and order, even if this endeavour means stifling the Self that nurtures emotion and imbalance. As indicated in the chart on next page, in Plaths poem, the afore-mentioned GS mappings generate a network of short-lived, expectation-challenging juxtapositions which emerge in the BS. The spotless wintry landscape emerges in mutually exclusive shades of white and black, which grant it its orderly austerity and flawless exactness of shape (the wintry landscape is scrupulously austere in order, metonymically being assessed as exact as a snowflake). Immaculation is clearly confined within solid shapes of ice and rock, dependable solids meant to inspire steadiness in mood, regularity and finiteness of sentiment (each sentiment within border). On the contrary, the turmoil and decay of the spring landscape aggressively strike the poet with organic and sonorous decay in the form of birds irregular babel and of leaves litter. Instead of the fret-arousing delights that romance and life have to offer, the poet opts in favour of the neatly structured, emotionless quiescence of winter and a life of solitude and confinement. Her springtime stroll brings back memories of ice and snow, for "she longed for winter then" (14). The poet's lexical choices voice thoughts of winter which strikingly contrast starkly with the disapproving lexicon designating the all-pervasive disarray of spring. The poet regards winter as a dignified, glorifiable time, "Scrupulously austere in its order / Of white and

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black" (14-15). The uncontrollable outbursts of life that she finds improper with spring fail to perturb the orderliness and tranquility of her recollections of winter. Irregularity of shapes and unpredictability of hues imbue the spring landscape with overwhelming wilderness, amplified by means of alliterative foregrounding (the birds irregular babel, wilderness of fern and flower). Organicity is decomposed, since petals appear in disarray and the burgeoning plants grow unruly, refusing smoothness of behaviour, submissiveness and smoothness of perception by brutally challenging the perceivers senses (five queenly wits). If the unblemished winter inspires distinction and restraint during the poets ceremonious April walk, and warrant her hearts frosty discipline, the variegated spring landscape engenders vulgarity, chaos and threat. the multifarious colourfulness of spring intolerably strikes the order-starved and harmonycraving poet and its tumult cannot but ruthlessly afflict her. Springs vulgar motley is an act of betrayal from orderliness and willful confinement, arousing that giddiness that only fools indulge in. As the chart illustrates, the systematic correspondences displayed between the input spaces and the blend space substantially reinforce the idea that he poet experiences no spring bliss, and withdraws from the scintillating landscape, royally banishing it to the realm of simpletons. The suitor's vain endeavours to win her affections dances are "gestures" that "imbalance the air" (8) and are subject for scrutiny by the same cold, standoffish glance. His joyousness and exuberance are, to her, sheer foolishness, and cannot be accommodated within her mind style. All of the suitor's efforts towards mirthful courtship lamentably fail, casting him as the object of her indifference. Complying with Plaths mind style of conceiving winter as the desired realm of tranquility and harmony, springs carnivalesque setting appears to obstruct the poets willful withdrawal from pandemonium. In contrast with winters order and moderation, spring evokes heart-rending memories of institutionalisation in an insane asylum (bedlam). The threat of insanity is amplified by the undesired presence of the lover. In the BS, the lovers initiative becomes juxtaposed with caddish intrusion into the poets personal territory of cleanliness and quiescence. Past interactions with the lover(s) (the one mentioned in the poem is her latest, which suggests previous potential suitors may also have been a threat) as well as potential encounters planner by the lover-traitor are conceptualised as a warlike situation. The lover is

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an insurgent man, who menaces to bring about a mutinous climate, meant to dissipate the poets tranquility. Intrusion is depicted in the graphic form of breaking the poets space with Generic Space phemomenon/entity undergoing change liable to unexpected shifts agent/natural causes evolution of psyche/walk

Input 1 personality/mood sanity/order/finitenes s insanity/chaos/filth lover

Input 2 season winter spring passer-by

Blended Space mood/season order+finiteness in mood/regularity+ distinction+restraint in behaviour +immaculation in wintry landscape disorder+insanity in mood/ turmoil+ vulgarity of mottle spring landscape lovers initiative/intrusion interaction with lover/ war response to lovers initiative+avoidance of lover/ withdrawal+enclosure against potential weaponry

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specific weapons; 'curse, fist, threat or love. It is noteworthy that the lovers weaponry comprises both tangible elements, usually utilisable in conflictual encounters (curse, fist) and abstract manipulative tools such as love. The poets response to the menace posed by the lover-intruder is one of withdrawal, manifested in the form of warlike enclosure within a confined space with the aid of warfare (a barricade of barb and check). Her withdrawal occurs neatly not because it happens stealthily but because she uses strategic means designed to delineate clear-cut boundaries between the tresspassable and the forbidden.

6. Concluding remarks Plath's poem delineates a consistent image of femininity willfully eluding pleasure and its alleged wilderness and insanity in favor of solitude and seclusion. In contrast with commonplace conceptualisations of the spinster as the old maid doomed to loneliness, barrenness and woeful irreparable regrets, in Plaths mind style, spinsterhood is a deliberate, moreover eulogised choice. As Plath conceives it, spinsterhood is the triumph of the Subject over the allegedly unstable, potentially brittle Self, whose frailty and vulnerability can be monitored by the Subjects capacity for reason and composure.

REFERENCES Dobbs, Jeannine (1977) "'Viciousness in the Kitchen': Sylvia Plath's Domestic Poetry," in Modern Language Studies , Vol. 7, No. 2, pp. 11-25. Fauconnier, G. & Turner, M. (1998). Conceptual Integration Networks in Cognitive Science 22, pp. 133-187. (1996). Cognitive Links and Domains: Basic Aspects of Mental Space Theory in Sweetser, E. & Fauconnier, G.: Spaces, Worlds and Grammar, pp. 129.The University of Chicago Press: Chicago and London. Grady, J.E., Oakley, T & Coulson, S (1999). Blending and Metaphor in Steen, G & Gibbs, R (eds.) Metaphor in cognitive linguistics . Philadelphia: John Benjamins, pp. 101-124.

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Lakoff, G. (1996). Sorry, Im not Myself Today: The Metaphor System for Conceptualising the Self in Sweetser, E. & Fauconnier, G.: Spaces, Worlds and Grammar, pp. 91-124.The University of Chicago Press: Chicago and London. Melnick, Burton. (2001) Cold Hard World/Warm Soft Mommy: Gender and Metaphors of Hardness, Softness, Coldness, and Warmth." PSYART: A Hyperlink Journal for the Psychological Study of the Arts, vol 28 Rose, J. (1992). The Haunting of Sylvia Plath. London: Virago. Semino, Elena (2002). A cognitive stylistic approach to mind style in narrative fiction in Semino, E. & Culpeper, J. (eds). Cognitive Stylistics. Language and Cognition in Text Analysis. John Benjamins. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, pp. 95-122. Wisker, Gina (2001). Viciousness in the Kitchen. Sylvia Plaths Gothic. London: Hodder & Stoughton.