Metaphors and Their Function
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It is a commonplace of elementary-school studies that a metaphor is "a figure of speech, an implied analogy in which one thing is imaginatively compared to or identified with another, dissimilar thing" (Morner and Rausch 131). But as Morner and Rausch explain, metaphors are not necessarily isolated to specific comparisons. Rather, a metaphor may be extended, or "sustained throughout the work and function[] as a controlling image" (132). Metaphorical extension reaches well beyond individual word associations or discrete instances of metaphorical comparison. Metaphor can be thought of as a mechanism for empowering diction, inasmuch as it need not be thought of so much as an instance of reaching or conveying a particular meaning, as a process that enables a larger project of experiencing language in a way that has the effect of arriving at a more immediate picture of reality. The power of metaphor to create meanings by the simplest or most elaborate of comparisons between unlike elements suggests why metaphor touches on metaphysics; the terms share more than a Greek root meaning change. Metaphor and metaphysics both go to the mysteries of identifying what is real or existent and how reality and existence can be defined. Whereas metaphysics as a branch of philosophy seeks to identify and explain the nature of what is real (or simply what is), metaphor seeks a connection with that nature that is higher, deeper, more immediate, and vital all at the same time. Embedded in language
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eyond a discrete simile (he looked like a lion) and elaborated as a linguistic form that points toward meaning speaks to its functionality as a process of thoughtful experience. The medieval drama Everyman is an extended allegory in which names of character traits, both emotional and moral, are personified. Rausch and Morner give the example of Dickinson's "Because I Could Not Stop for Death," which narrates the story of a carriage ride as an extended metaphor for "our journey through life--childhood, maturity, death" (132). Not only is that metaphor extended, but metaphors encased within that master comparison are multiplied over the course of the poem. . The images encountered during the journey are organized around a meditation of and acquiescence in the inevitability of death. Death is personified as a considerate and gracious friend whose "civility" overtakes and absorbs the vicissitudes--both labor and leisure--of the whole of life experience.
Dickinson's text illustrates how what MacArthur describes as master metaphor (654) stretches and worries multiple latent meanings out of manifestly modest and simple comparisons. However, some criticism is concerned to identify failures of metaphor. For example, the "vigour" of even t
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Morner Rausch, According Plato, Elsewhere Heidegger, Metaphor Langer's, Stop Death, Lacan Feminine, Langer Heidegger--the, Heidegger's Langer's, Langer--and Aristotle, According Heidegger, metaphorical expression, metaphor extended, lyrical ballads, san francisco, ed david richter, books 1997, boston bedford, richter boston, morner rausch, david richter, poetic diction, david richter boston, ed ed david, 2d ed ed, trends 2d ed,
Approximate Word count = 3475
Approximate Pages = 14 (250 words per page)
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