Abstract
Is there a way to theorize and quantify the aesthetic appeal of a poem to its audience, or is each reader’s response too subjective and variable to be mapped out? In this paper, I argue that it is possible to describe the elements of a poem that contribute to readerly perceptions of beauty, such that we may achieve a greater understanding of the patterns that lend themselves well to poetry, aesthetically speaking. The paradigm that thus follows may then be applied not just to a given individual’s personal palate and literary biases but to the respective aesthetic tastes of entire demographics of people as well, no matter how similar or disparate. Through this application of aesthemetry—a new term for the literary study and metric of reader perception—we may employ surveys of readers’ aesthetic responses to poetry and explore their data, among other research methods, in order to discover aspects of texts that appeal to their audience and the reasons for their resonance with readers, both individually and communally. Upon this discovery, we may utilize mathematical tools to model and quantify the interactions between various relevant features of poems as they contribute to their perceived beauty. Using psychological studies that have contributed their own methods of aesthetic research, in addition to a novel application of mathematical concepts and operations, I argue that we can map out readers’ responses to poetry by developing a theory of aesthemetry, thereby contributing a new direction for a science of the humanities and critical cultural studies.
Presenters
Nolan DannelsStudent, PhD, University of California, San Diego, California, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Aesthetics, Poetry, Reader Perception, Beauty Measurement, Survey Data, Aesthemetry, Humanities
