In this article I discuss the ways in which cognitive linguistics can contribute to literary study by showing how both writers and readers make use of implicit cognitive mapping strategies in creating and interpreting literary texts. My argument is based on the premise that the same cognitive processes occur to both produce and understand language. I apply contemporary theories of analogical mapping, conceptual metaphor, and conceptual integration networks (blending) to several Dickinson poems and show how different interpretations of a Dickinson text arise from the different mapping strategies readers use, based on their own idealized cognitive cultural models (knowledge domains). [M.F.]