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Evaluation in lyrical poetry is mostly an uncharted territory, although subgenres such as panegyric or elegy suggest that it has a rich tradition. This contribution proposes a definition of evaluation in lyrical poetry and explores possible forms and functions of such evaluations in selected examples. The analyses suggest that contemporary poetry, although it may be full of evaluative expressions, provides little clues to the actual object of evaluation or the axiology of evaluation, which makes evaluation in poetry appear vague, incomplete or enigmatic. Despite this tendency towards vagueness, evaluation in poetry may help to convey knowledge to its recipients. Among others, poems by Erika Burkart, Daniela Danz and Wulf Kirsten will demonstrate that evaluation may serve as an enhancement of represented experiences, in particular by tapping into a phenomenological knowledge of ‘what-it-feels-like’ to be in such and such a situation.

The article considers the question whether poets lie against the background of the possible difference between poetical and discursive knowledge. Starting from Plato’s thesis, namely that poets lie, the article refers to Rorty, who, in contrast to Plato and with the example of Nabokov, recognizes in poetry a special kind of knowledge. It is opposed to discursive knowledge, which is closely related to prose. In the second part Parmenides’ didactic poem “On Nature” is seen as an example of proposing discursive truth in poetic words. Heidegger read Parmenides’ poem as a case for the evidence of truth in non-ambiguous poetical words (cf. the example “a-letheia” – un-concealedness, truth). Popper, however, interpreted the same text very differently, namely as a critical reference to the principal ambi- guity of the word in human language and as the first known instance of the presentation of the deductive method. In this context the works of Nietzsche and Solov’ev are seen as opposed to each other, as Nietzsche in “Zarathustra” identi- fied philosophical and poetical knowledge, whereas Solov’ev in his main work kept them separate from each other. The last part of the article studies the relation of poetical and discursive knowledge in poems of Gennadij Ajgi with their closeness to the dream, of Vera Stepanova with the intriguing opening to the co- presence of the Poetical I and the Other in one and the same word and of Durs Grünbein, who exposes the ambiguity of poetical language as a means to show that even untruth can open a way to come to truth. Then the lie of poetical words can be their way to say the truth.

This article examines the features of cognition gained through poetic creativity. First, three aspects of the theoretical considerations of Russian poet Olʼga Sedakova are considered: the attributes of the poetic state, the subject of poetical creation and of poetical reception, and the relationship of poetical creation and mystical experience. Second, parallels to her literary work are demonstrated in an overview, but also discussed in a concrete analysis of one of her poems («Vzgljad kota»). It is shown that Sedakova is entangled in contradictions in her theoretical work because she reproduces the openness and ambiguity of poetic writing in her theoretical texts. Finally, it is demonstrated that the poetic state can be characterized on the basis of her theoretical and poetical work as non-propositionally, founded in a pre-conscious mental structure, and can be qualified with Leibniz' concept of the cognitio clara et confusa.

This text examines various positions and opinions on the question of the relationship between lyric and knowledge. In this respect, we can, on the one hand, determine traditional positions which contend that poetry may be understood as a tool of thought or at least offer access to knowledge. On the other hand, there are positions that strongly advocate the view that knowledge depends on methodically secured insight (cognition) that cannot be realized in poetry. This article adopts Gabriel’s (2013) mediating position, which assumes that there are other forms of non-propositional knowledge besides propositional knowledge, such as ‘knowingwhat-it-is-like’ and others. Following the definition of lyric by Zymner (2009), the focus is then set on the issue of how lyric may convey nonpropositional knowledge. An analysis of a poem by Herta Müller will provide an example for an imparting of lyrical knowledge by showing (‚Aufweisen‘).

Can we learn something from poetry? Can poems convey to their readers insight, knowledge, orientation, understanding or even wisdom? The paper assumes that general answers to these questions are possible but often lacking in substance. Instead, it is worthwhile to consider (a) different types of cognitive achievements and (b) sub-genres of poetry to which specific cognitive achievements have been attributed in certain aesthetic traditions as well as in literary criticism. For this purpose, the paper introduces a modern descriptive vocabulary for various types of cognitive significance and advocates an orientation to the concept of “knowledge” instead of more vague terms like “insight” or “understanding”. In a second step, the paper deals with three sub-genres of lyric poetry, whose cognitive value has repeatedly been claimed in aesthetic traditions as well as in literary studies: “didactic poetry”, “philosophical poetry” (Germ. “Gedankenlyrik”) and “poetry of moods”. Analysing for each sub-genre one characteristic example the paper shows, how each of the three sub-genres privileges a certain type of cognitive significance or a certain “mechanism” of knowledge communication. In a third step, the paper points out which basic features of poetry, such as fictionality, argumentativeness, and literariness, are essential and which are irrelevant to the different types of cognitive significance. Finally, the paper discusses (a) whether the three sub-genres of lyric poetry can be defined without reference to their cognitive functions and (b) whether it would be more appropriate to postulate corresponding practices of reading lyric poetry that are linked but not restricted to these sub-genres of lyric poetry and therefore can basically be applied to every poem.

This paper characterizes several ways of transferring knowledge via lyric poetry. It is argued that conveying information via schemata is a prevalent mode of that kind. But there are also others like employing a concise use of language or pointing at other texts using intertextual references. Besides, many poetry books establish some sort of a lyric sequence to further elaborate a certain topic. As information in lyric poetry is not only schematized, but also sketchy, from a critical reception point of view it may also be highlighted that recipients can make use of it as some kind of a template that enables them to gain new insights related to their own living environment. The important role of schemata as well as the other kinds of knowledge transfer specified in this paper are exemplified with reference to the contemporary poetry of ageing and with a special focus on several poems by Harald Hartung. As ageing is a process that becomes more and more important to western societies due to demographic development, the poetry of ageing and of old age in particular may serve as a tool for gaining knowledge and especially knowledge of what-it-is-like regarding that topic. This adds even more authority to the question of how knowledge is transferred via literature and lyric poetry in particular.

This article analyses the depiction of school as a place of knowledge in contemporary poetry in English. In dealing with the poetry of Jean Breeze (Jamaica/GB), Gillian Clarke (Wales/GB), Carol Ann Duffy (England/GB), Thabo Jijana (South Africa), Meena Kandasamy (Tamil Nadu/India), Claudia Rankine (USA) and Edwin Thumboo (Singapore), it does not only enable the reader to draw pedagogical conclusions from poetic evidence. The article differentiates further between a poem’s potential of knowledge and its process of knowledge developed during its reception; taking, additionally, into account how its reception might interfere with the poem’s potential of knowledge and even with its author’s intention. Eventually, each poem highlights an important anglophone region ranging from the United States, the Caribbean, India and South Africa to the British Isles and Singapore. Hence, each poem is also interpreted in its cultural and historical context. Last but not least, the article tries to undertake a comparative analysis of the role of contemporary German-language poetry within educational contexts in Germany.

Walter Benjamin entwickelt seinen Begriff der ‚Aura‘ an der Lyrik Baudelaires und wendet ihn gleichermaßen auf Kunstgegenstände, Natur und Mensch an. Georg Picht transformiert Benja-mins Aurabegriff in die Methode einer vorrationalen Erkenntnisform, deren Medium für ihn vor-nehmlich die Musik, aber auch Lyrik und Kunst sind. In neuerer Naturlyrik lassen sich Spielarten der Auraerkenntnis ausmachen, die mithilfe der Begriffe Benjamins und Pichts beschreibbar wer-den: Gennadij Ajgi schafft zur Erfahrung von Naturaura poetische Äquivalente; Keijiro Suga stellt eine poetische Diagnose der Aura von Naturorten und ihrer historischen Imprägnierung durch Krieg und Atomkatastrophe (Fukushima); Christian Lehnert übersetzt auratische Natur-kommunikation in poetische Gespräche.

The ability of poetry – on the basis of its generic capability to bring together playfulness and awareness, an anticipated future (Ahnung) and the present – has had consequences for the history of German poetry insofar as poetry could function as a seismograph of tectonic shifts in times of societal crisis. Such was the case in the 1980s, when the East German state entered a phase of agony and there was ever more apparent disquiet in society. Multiple moments of consolidation shaped the poetry of the GDR which ought to be investigated for its epistemological potential: first, the return of political “poems for the times” (Zeitgedichte) in satirical diagnoses, second, poetic anticipation in accumulated collections of surreal visual constructs in poetry and the emphasis of grotesque effects, third, the exorbitant adventure to bring to life a space of thought and language beyond authoritarian surveillance – that is, the ambition to free the diffuse, the Proteus-esque, the marginalized, and the secretive from ossified discourse structures. A fourth tendency further resides in the historical-philosophically grounded self-determination of position and reassurance (Standortbestimmung und Vergewisserung) in poetry. Repeatedly these are bound to decided rejections of every kind of teleological progress, at times with apocalyptic scenarios. Premonition and anticipated knowledge intertwine when, for example, Volker Braun foresees the fall of the Berlin Wall in a poem written in 1988.

The relation between poetry and cognition has seldom been discussed theoretical-ly due to the assumption that poetry has more to do with emotion than with cogni-tion. The following article tries to measure out this field. It distinguishes between three types of cognition in poetry referring mostly to European and American po-ems of the 20th century: cognition that is caused by poems, cognition that is im-parted in poems, and cognition that is formed in poems.

According to the „Ältestes Systemprogramm des deutschen Idealismus“ philosophy resolves itself into poetics at the end. Hölderlin elaborates this idea in his poetical fragments. The article describes the systematic impact of Hölderlin’s concept of “Wechsel der Töne” on the act of composing poems. By the example of the seven keywords of an unwritten poem „Ovids Rükkehr nach Rom“, the article focusses on a specific metamorphosis: the one from a pure intellectual and pre-lingual realm into the lingual sphere of a concrete poem. Thereby it becomes clear that the way of thinking (in its pre-lingual sense) is poetic; the process of thinking transforms itself into a genuine poetic progress, and vice versa the structure of a poem turns out to be part of a creative development of thinking. By contrast, the described transformative process elucidates an impact of contemporary poetics, because transformation as a core issue is mostly only referred to linguistic, social, or cultural aspects.

On account of its constitution as a temporally organized sequence of verbal utterances, typically presented from a speaker’s subjective perspective, lyric poetry is particularly suited to simulate mental processes and thereby mediate forms of cognition and insight. Indeed, the presentation of cognitive phenomena can be considered one of the prime functions of lyric poems throughout the history of poetry. For the analysis of such processes in poems a transgeneric narratological approach is here proposed, which is ultimately based on the anthropological fact that human existence is inescapably subject to temporality and change and that individuals are therefore permanently concerned with understanding, structuring, planning or preventing change. For this purpose, they employ the basic operation of narration in their communication both with others and themselves as well as in the production and reception of the various artistic genres, not only in fiction, drama and film, but also in lyric poetry. Poems employ narrative elements in a variety of modes which are specific to poetry, such as psycho-narration, mini-narratives, condensed, implicit or metaphorical narratives. A central device for structuring and interpreting a narrative sequence is the event, a transformation or decisive turn in the chain of changes, which then constitutes the moment of cognition or insight in the poem. The presentation of such a mental transformation from the speaker’s limited subjective perspective allows for a critical assessment of status and motivation of the process of cognition on the part of the reader. This transgeneric narratological approach to the cognitive dimension of lyric poetry will first be demonstrated with the analysis of an older prototypical example, W. B. Yeats’s “The Second Coming”, and then applied to three recent, complex British-Irish poems, Eavan Boland’s “The Making of an Irish Goddess”, Kathleen Jamie’s “The Way We Live” and Paul Muldoon’s “Why Brownlee Left”, exemplifying the range of variation in which lyric poetry can perform and mediate mental processes of cognition.

How do Germanophone contemporary writers conceive of their poetry in relation to their proper lives and experiences? Comparing two cycles of poems from the beginning of the years 2000 dealing with invasive medical treatments their empirical authors supposedly have undergone themselves – Ulrike Draesner’s “bläuliche sphinx (metal)” on a missed abortion and Thomas Kling’s “Gesang von der Bronchoskopie” on the biopsy of the lungs –, this paper explores how poetic language is used to shape and to offer experiences that are staged as escaping entire translation into linguistic propositions, thus claiming a kind of ‘complementary knowledge’ that is conceived as exclusively conveyed, or rather generated, by poetry.

The paper gives a survey on the German tradition of didactic poems and nature poems from the 18th century to the immediate present. The early modern pattern of nature as a peaceful Arcadia, the enlightenment pattern of a nature getting sense by God in every detail, and the romanticist pattern of a nature that is impenetrable but nevertheless a permanent object of longing (“Sehnsucht”) are proved to be models of nature poetry that are the most important reference points up to now. The poems about nature written in the early 21st century refer to these models as well as to their destruction and deconstruction by the modernists and avant-gardes of the 20th century. The most convincing poets devoting their attention to nature today play with these traditions with artistic perfection and in an ironical manner at the same time. Often, annotations, essays, and talks on nature are accompanying the lyrical texts. In the present, female writers are the authors of some of the best poems about nature. In several poems, the relationship between love and nature appears under new perspectives. Other important subjects are the landscapes of far-away countries.

”Poetry and Cognition“ is a topic which could be regarded as paradigmatic for the objective of this journal: Exploring a phenomenon which primarily discloses itself to a transdisciplinary and polyperspectivic approach, extending across research areas defined by disciplines and subjects. The question of knowledge gained by and within poetry neither exclusively falls within the scope of a genuinely literary, philological or even lyricological research area, nor does it entirely belong into various fields of philosophy, such as aesthetics or epistemology, but requires for its discussion both, an approach from the perspective of specialised academic research on poetry as well as from an epistemological point of view.