Bridging the Performance Gap: The Body, Cognitive Theory, and Comedia Studies

The purpose of this study is to acquaint comedia scholars with the "cognitive revolution" in literary and cultural studies—an approach enabling us to understand age-old problems with new evidence and insight. A key benefit of this interdisciplinary process is an enriched understanding of how the unique yet valid contributions of distinct fields might complement each other more than previously realized. In effect, bridges are created among psychological, philosophical, biological, structuralist, poststructuralist, and cultural or other materialist-oriented studies used in comedia research. A second benefit of the cognitive approach is its bridging of the "gap" traditionally seen between a dramatic text and its performance. Similarly, embodied cognitive research reveals overlooked relationships among dramatists, actors, spectators, readers, etc. Because cognitive theory deals precisely with the mind as profoundly embodied in the most literal and physical sense, performance-oriented fields like comedia are a perfect illustration of how body/brain functions are always totally inseparable and interrelated. We learn, for example, that even the pre-linguistic brain activities always function "metaphorically," that is, by bridging distinct areas of the brain and creating momentary maps of meaning. Hence the literary, the lofty, the rational, and the artistic are also the biological, the emotional, and the ordinary. The implications of such new considerations for our re-examination of canonical comedia texts, criticism, and literary history are far-reaching. This study discusses such developments in Shakespearean studies and suggests several areas "ripe" for study in comedia research. (CC)