Interaction Between Environment And Cognition

It was not until the 1980s,when the wave of "Spatial Turn" surged through literary academia,that the literary space has aroused critics’ attention as an independent research object.This thesis makes an in-depth exploration of the interaction between cognition and environment embodied in The Importance of Being Earnest from a spatial perspective.Relying on the theory of "sense of place",a theoretical framework based on the three-dimensional model of place identity,place dependence,and place attachment in environmental psychology is built.On the one hand,the characters are categorized according to their habitual residence,and the environmental influences on their cognitive formation are analyzed individually.On the other hand,the position of environment and cognition as subject or object are swapped,and the transformation of the formed cognitive patterns on all the existences that constitute the space,including the environment,is explored.Wilde employs two literary space archetypes:the town and the country.The country represents the natural and open space,with low functionality and high freedom of place.Such literary space results in the rising of arbitrary place identity and low place dependence for the dwellers.Relatively,the density of buildings and the level of modernization are high in the town,while the rules of urban life lead to a sense of restraint.This corresponds to the comparative stability and strong social connectedness of town residents’ place identity as well as the high place dependence.Whereas,no matter what kind of literary space the character is located in,his/her place attachment is in a mutable state affected by duration of time.The influence of space permeates all aspects of residents’ lives.In turn,individuals who have developed idiosyncratic cognitive patterns in this space instill their consciousness to the environment with the aim of realizing their own pursuits and ideals,which is manifested through the transformation of the space.By utilizing individual initiative,human beings can reselect and reshape the environment.The plasticity of space is thus revealed.In addition,the farce of "Earnest" reflects a shift in the characters’perception of place identity,proving that apart from physical space,thought as an space also possesses an acquired malleability.This thesis explores the interaction between cognition and environment from the spatial perspective,expecting to bring new ideas to the meaning of literary space and to the study of interdisciplinary literary criticism.