Metaphor

Description

First published in 1972, this work examines the complex concept of metaphor. It defines the term by placing the various key ideas about the nature of metaphor in their literary and social context, and in doing so, it traces the developing history of the concept. This account has considerable range, beginning with Aristotle and ending with the work of modern linguist and anthropologists. From this analysis emerge two opposed yet complementary ideas: the classical view of metaphor, which sees metaphor as a detachable device imported into language, and the romantic view, which sees metaphor as inseparable from language. This book will be of interest to those studying English literature and language. General editor's preface Metaphor and figurative language The classical view Aristotle Cicero, Horace, Longinus The Rhetorica ad Herennium Sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth century views The Middle Ages Donne and the Compasses Ramus Dryden and the Pimples Plain Style The Eighteenth Century The romantic view Plato Shelley, Herder, Vico Wordsworth Coleridge Some twentieth-century views I. A. Richards William Empson Owen Barfield, Philip Wheelwright Christine Brooke-Rose Linguistics Anthropology Conclusions