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The Metaphorical Space of Meredith's Diana of the Crossways
- SEL Studies in English Literature 1500-1900
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Volume 43, Number 4, Autumn 2003
- pp. 877-895
- 10.1353/sel.2003.0038
- Article
- Additional Information
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This essay offers a new reading of George Meredith's 1885 novel Diana of the Crossways from the perspective of cognitive theory as it has been developed by George Lakoff, Mark Johnson, and Mark Turner. A cognitive perspective reveals that the novel is as much a network of interrelated metaphors as it is a narrative sequence, and sheds light on Meredith's understanding of the relationship between mind and body. In Diana, marriage is a creative blend (an idea developed by Turner), and the redistribution of its input domains constitutes the movement of the narrative.