On Thu, 29 Jan 2009 10:59:13 -0800, Carol DeVolder wrote:
>I can't help but wonder though, where you would put someone 
>who refused to assimilate or accommodate, and simply said, 
>"It wasn't poetry."

Indeed.  If you were to ask a poetry naive person to judge
which of the following is part of a poem, I think that the
answer is pretty obvious:

(1)  Candy is dandy,
but liquor is quicker

(2)  I should have been a pair of of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

If the instance doesn't match the prototype that one has for
the category, then the question of schema modification is
irrelevant.  If the category of poetry is a single instance
(i.e., lines that rhyme), then all other forms of poetry will
not be recognized.  Think back to Wittgenstein's question
of what defines a game?  Are there any criteria common to
all games?  A person with novice experience with games
is likely to "yes".  Wittgenstein and people with expert level
knowledge of games are likely to say "no", that the category
of games has graded membership with some games being
more prototypical than others (but what is prototypical depends
upon one's experience with games).  I think a similar situation
exists with poems and poetry (I'm not really sure the poetry
should be thought of as a schema but a category).

-Mike Palij
New York University
[email protected]




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