Topicality And Conceptual Blending: Titus Andronicus and The Case of William Hacket

In this essay, which combines historicism and cognitive criticism, I identify a previously unnoticed topical allusion in Titus Andronicus; the allusion then serves as my illustrative case-study in a cognitive account of topicality. As a historicist, I present evidence suggesting the probable topical intentions and reception of two passages from Titus. As a cognitivist, I analyze my account in terms of conceptual blending theory. Shakespeareans stand to gain by understanding topical identifications, in the minds of authors and of their audiences, as conceptual blends. Such a cognitive historicism would explain how audiences can partly infer an author's probable intentions, as well as how critics, by studying historical records with attention to cultural and individual circumstances of cognition, can partially reconstruct a work's probable reception(s) in the minds of a given audience. Finally, conceptual blending theory reveals the metaphoricity of topical identities, and hence their aesthetic novelty, which critics have neglected.