[Catherine Chandler]

Janice,

This is a fascinating topic for discussion, and the one which interests me most in poetics.

[Cally Conan-Davies]

I echo 100% what Cathy has written above. I spend most of my day-dream contemplating metaphor - how apparently obvious, how impenetrably mysterious, is the nature of metaphor. It's the pulse of all poetics, and of life, to me. If I can think of something useful to say here, I will, but till then, I will be reading this thread with all my windows and doors open.

Thanks for starting it, Janice!

Cally

[Andrew Frisardi]

Apropos of Steve C.'s posting, a book called Metaphors We Live By, by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, is well worth checking out. A big excerpt from it is available here.

I learned in school that there is an important difference between simile and metaphor--simile posits that something is like something else, metaphor is bolder. The example for simile was "love is like a rose," while metaphor simply stated: "a rose." But I don't think the distinction is nearly so clear. A powerful simile can work with all the force of metaphor. The word "like" does make an association between two or more things more explicit, but the two things associated can have all kinds of peripheral associations and reverberations not controlled by the terms set up by the simile.

For instance, Pound's famous finish to canto 17:

Sunset like the grasshopper flying.

He’s referring to a green tint in the sky before sunset, but the sentence is busting at the seams. Of course, it's a lot more surprising to say what Pound says here than to say "love is like a rose."

[Lance Levens]

I've taught the Lakoff and Johnson in IB Theory of Knowledge classes.
Their assertion is so simple it's revolutionary: metaphors aren't embellishment. They are the engine that drives the train. From Aristotle through the 20th century metaphors were given short shrift. L and J bring them to the epistimological forefront. Even the most abstract expressions are fodder for L and J. For example:

Who put that idea into your head?

Here "your head" is a container. "Idea" in an object that goes into the container.

This type of statement falls into their "conduit category" which applies to but doesn't exhaust abstract thought.

In general the mind is filled (metaphor) with metaphorical domains
The domains may or may not inter-relate. Take "fishing."

He took the bait.
He's a sucker; just reel him in.
He's a shrink. He fishes in deep water.

and so on.

THinkl of the language we use to deal with an argument:

I blew him out of the water.
I destroyed him.

To argue we use the language of war. L and J put the question: what if we used the language of dance? Instead of destruction we might talk about in synch, harmony, moving together, in rhythm.

I don't think L and J are engaging the "what is a metaphor" discussion per se. As the name "cognitive" suggests, they're claiming that we think by metaphor.

[Philip Quinlan]

Just to be contentious for a moment (contentious, moi?)

The problem with formulating theories about how we think based on the language we use is that the language we use is, so far as I can see, mostly a poor attempt to externalise a sanitised version of how we think.

I do not think totally, or even primarily, in language, and my observation of others leads me to believe that that is common, if not universal. I think in pictures. When I dream I see only pictures, because the conscious mind has switched off and stopped trying to make sense of it all linguistically.

I definitely don't think in metaphors. They are purely linguistic constructs which may or may not help to eff the ineffable internal goings-on.

I'm fortified slightly in my argument by the fact that the current U.S. Poet Laureate said something similar, in connection with his decision to cease punctuating his poems. He sees (or saw) poems as recorded thought, rather than speech, and thought isn't punctuated. He also thought all poems fail, because language is imperfect.

Philip

[W.F. Lantry]

Originally Posted by Philip Quinlan

I'm fortified slightly in my argument by the fact that the current U.S. Poet Laureate said something similar, in connection with his decision to cease punctuating his poems. He sees (or saw) poems as recorded thought, rather than speech, and thought isn't punctuated. He also thought all poems fail, because language is imperfect.

Philip,

If you go here, and move to the second video (the interview portion) you can find a pretty concise discussion of Merwin's thoughts on knowledge, form, and punctuation. You may be surprised by what you find about punctuation, and I think most people here may be surprised to find he thinks of himself as primarily a formal poet.

On your other point, I'm afraid we're going to have to agree to disagree. Does language come first? Can thought exist without language? I have no idea.

On the primary subject, here's Aristotle on Metaphor:

"It is a great matter to observe propriety in these several modes of expression, as also in compound words, strange (or rare) words, and so forth. But the greatest thing by far is to have a command of metaphor. This alone cannot be imparted by another; it is the mark of genius, for to make good metaphors implies an eye for resemblances. "

Off to dine...

Thanks,

Bill

[Catherine Chandler]

An interesting aside:

I've just finished reading Frederick Turner's essay, "The Art of the Symbol" in the Spring 2011 American Arts Quarterly, one of the many gifts received at West Chester.

After a rather lengthy discussion of Wittgenstein's hermeneutic circle and how the "problem" is most significant in the "realm of words" (as opposed to a musical composition, a painting, or a sculpture), and the uselessness of "cutting a blaze" either within or outside the circle of the known world, Turner posits that the word "yet", though unsayable, unknowable, irrational and chaotic is, in fact the place, the only place "at the exact edge of the circle" where a true blaze can be cut. It is " . . . the space of art, of new scientific hypothesis, of grace, or moral discovery. .. It is still in itself unknown and unexplored, but its contents can be located, referenced and identified by metaphor, which acts as a sort of verbal triangulation or trigonometry, providing their direction and distance, so to speak, in terms of a new relation between fixed points within the known world."

As for metaphor:

"It is well known to etymologists and linguists that languages grow — that is, develop vocabularies for talking about new things and ideas — by means of metaphor. A visual metaphor is the compelling significant image, a musical metaphor is a connection between different musical elements that melodically expresses an emotion. Metaphors, especially grand metaphors — chinjikijilus — create new language for us to think in."

[Lance Levens]

Phillip et al.

Even when you say: "I don't think in metaphors" you're thinking in a metaphor. There is a literal meaning beneath the sentence we don't normally recognize. There are two ways to read this statement as L and J see it: One "in metaphors" literally means inside of a container--a container which you label metaphor. You, the thinking subject, are sitting, standing inside a container. A second way to read it is "in" functions as an ablative of means. You're using the metaphor to think. The visual picture here might be a pair of scissors or a wrench or a hammer. I cut with a pair of scissors or I'm using a pair of scissors to cut. In either reading there is a literal meaning underneath "I don't think in metaphors" that let's you know you are, in fact, thinking in metaphors. Again, L and J would say metaphors aren't a figure of speech, as is traditionally understood. They drive the train.

[Janice D. Soderling]

I am stealing time to share this with you.

Today some po-books arrived. One by Jo Shapcott (Of Mutability) who our UK friends will know.

In a poem called Somewhat Unravelled, I found this wonderful series of metaphors.

(...) She says, nurse told me I
should furniture walk around the house, holding on to it.
I say, little auntie you are a plump armchair
in flight, a kitchen table on a difficult hike without boots,
you do the sideboard crawl like no one else, you are a sofa
rumba, you go to sleep like a rug. (...)

It ends with a dead metaphor that the preceding revived.

(...) and we'll follow the sun
with our faces until the cows come home.

[Andrew Frisardi]

Originally Posted by Lance Levens

Phillip et al.

Even when you say: "I don't think in metaphors" you're thinking in a metaphor. There is a literal meaning beneath the sentence we don't normally recognize. There are two ways to read this statement as L and J see it: One "in metaphors" literally means inside of a container--a container which you label metaphor. You, the thinking subject, are sitting, standing inside a container. A second way to read it is "in" functions as an ablative of means. You're using the metaphor to think. The visual picture here might be a pair of scissors or a wrench or a hammer. I cut with a pair of scissors or I'm using a pair of scissors to cut. In either reading there is a literal meaning underneath "I don't think in metaphors" that let's you know you are, in fact, thinking in metaphors. Again, L and J would say metaphors aren't a figure of speech, as is traditionally understood. They drive the train.

Thanks, Lance, for your concise and clear summary of L and J's thesis. You obviously remember it in much more detail than I do.

Do they say anything about the difference between metaphor in this sense and what's usually called metaphor? I think their basic thesis is fascinating and true, but at the same time I recognize that a strong metaphor in poetry feels very different than the experience of "I don't think in metaphors." It's the power of imagery in the poem, so diluted in the "abstract" statement. Think of Pound's interest in the relatively concrete nature of Chinese language compared to English, which led him to imitate its effects with so-called Imagism. In other words, while L and J point to the implicit literalness or concreteness of all our language, the power of a metaphor in a poem lies in part in the unfiltered immediacy of the image. And I'm wondering what L and J say about that difference, if anything.