Metaphor; Figurative Language; Mannerism; Metaphysical Conceit; Signifier-Signified; Cognitive Poetics; Synaesthesia; Componential Analysis; Romantic Metaphor; Grotesque; Sensuous Metaphor; Split & Integrated Focus; Concrete vs. Abstract; Witty Metaphor; Emotional Metaphor; Jokes & Metaphors; Lateralisation; Tip-of-the-Tongue.
Theories of metaphors are traditionally concerned with two questions: How can one recognize a metaphor, and how can one offer a plausible explication of it. More recently, with the advent of generative linguistics, a hitherto neglected question has begun increasingly to draw attention: how can one account for the fact that human beings are capable of producing and understanding novel metaphoric constructions to which they have not been previously exposed. The present book assumes that metaphors have not only meanings and semantic and logical structures from which those meanings arise, but also perceived effects, which may have a substantial contribution to the poetic qualities of literary works. What is more, it assumes that these perceived qualities can systematically be related to meanings and structures, via the cognitive processes of a human perceiver. Further, one of the main assumptions of this book is that neither the meanings, nor the perceived effects of metaphors can be satisfactorily accounted for with reference to conventions only. Reliance on conventions at best transfers the mystery from one place to another. It is essential to explain how metaphors are understood for the first time. The first group of papers in this book (chapters 1-3) is a concise presentation of some far more extensive study the author carried out in the late 'sixties and the early 'seventies, concerning the perceptual qualities regularly associated with certain figurative structures. These papers assume that the witty or emotional quality of a metaphor or simile is not determined only by the semantic elements included, but also by its structure, the "rhetorical manipulation" of those elements. The second group of papers (chapters 4-7) apply componential analysis to poetic language in general, and figurative language in particular. It has adopted from contemporary linguistic theory a semantic information-processing model in an attempt to account for the capability of human beings to produce and understand figurative expressions to which they have never before been exposed. The next group of papers (chapters 8-10) explores the relationship between the concrete and the abstract in poetry. Chapter 11, "Poetry of Disorientation", discusses three conspicuously puzzling poetic devices usually associated with varieties of the poetry of wit: a specific kind of application of sensuous metaphors, the metaphysical conceit and the grotesque. These devices are treated as adaptive devices turned to aesthetic ends. Chapter 12 distinguishes literary synaesthesia from synaesthesia as a psychological phenomenon. Appendix 1 discusses at length the Tip-of-the-Tongue phenomenon (when one has a word on the tip of the tongue and cannot recall it), suggesting that the underlying mechanism may throw light on special effects of poetic language in general and metaphors in particular. Appendix 2 defends certain speculations concerning poetic effects in the light of recent brain research (without contending, however, that brain research may solve literary problems).
Contents
1. Split and Integrated Focus 7
A Theory of Focuses 7
The Sling of Shakespeare and Herbert 10
The Image of Man in Hamlet and Faust 11
2. One Relationship Between Jokes and Metaphors 19
3. The Asymmetry of Sacred, Sexual and Filial Love in
Figurative Language 33
4. Semantic Information-Processing and Poetic Language
43
Introductory 43
Markedness 45
A Cognitive Theory of Metaphor: Hyponymy 46
A Marked Simile by Alterman 48
General Terms vs. "Spatio-Temporal Continuity"
51
Subject and Predicate 53
Spiritual Space 59
Further Directions of Inquiry 59
Appendix 62
5. Literal Discourse, Figurative Language, and Intuitive
Preferences 69
Explicit & Implicit Meanings in Literal Discourse
70
Cancellation vs. Multiplication 79
Hierarchy of Features & Cognitive Schemata 85
Feature-Cancellation & Cognitive Schemata 88
6. On Understanding Poetic Metaphors: "Grounds
for Constraining the Basis of Comparison" 91
Theoretical Assumptions 91
Miller on Metaphor 94
"Thou Shalt not Commit a Social Science" 95
Verb Structure 97
Science vs. Sciencing 100
Coda: Referring or Asserting 101
7. Linguistic Intuition as a Constraint Upon Interpretation
105
Introductory 105
A Love-Poem by Yehuda Halevy 105
Gombrich on "Sanity" in Interpretation 108
Intuitive Rules in the Natural Sciences 109
An Analysis of "My Hands Grazed" 110
Ad-hoc Scales 112
Linguistics and Aesthetics 114
8. The Concrete and the Abstract in Poetry 117
The Concrete & the Abstract, and Related Dichotomies
117
The Metaphoric & Metonymic Poles 124
The Substantive Level 127
Thematized Predicate 128
The Control of Attention 140
9. Abstract Nouns in Poetry: Perceptual and Conceptual
Categorization 145
Feeling and Knowing 145
Strong and Weak Shapes 149
Sequential and Spatial Processing 151
Time in Poetry 155
Allegory and Symbol 165
Chearlesse Night in Spenser and Baudelaire 168
To Sum Up 174
10. "Oceanic" Dedifferentiation and Poetic
Metaphor 177
Rapid vs. Delayed Conceptualization 177
Poetic Metaphors 180
Oceanic Imagery in Faust 186
Conclusions 189
11. Poetry of Disorientation 191
Sensuous Metaphors and the Grotesque 191
The Metaphysical Conceit 196
The Metaphysical Conceit - Influence or Creation? 200
The Metaphysical Conceit - An Adaptive Device? 203
12. Literary Synaesthesia 209
Literary & Nonliterary Synaesthesia 209
Critical Distinctions & Synaesthesia 213
Hierarchy and the "Oyster's Consciousness"215
Description or Concoction of an Experience? 224
Panchronistic Tendencies in Synaesthesia 225
Counterexamples 238
Metonymic and Metaphoric Transfers 240
Intense Absence 245
Cross-Cultural Universals of Affective Meaning 251
"La Surface Azurée du Silence" 257
"Chaos" and Synaesthesia 260
Shape and Synaesthesia 265
Synaesthesia and Reference 268
Appendix 1: The TOT Phenomenon and Thing-Destruction:
A Psycholinguistic Model of Poetry 273
Thing Destruction & Thing-Free Qualities 273
"The Roses of her Cheeks" 275
The TOT Phenomenon 277
Referentiality, Serial Position, & Milton's "Miraculous
Organ Voice" 285
Summary & Conclusions 287
Appendix 2: Art, Language, Lateralization 289
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To Introduction
Key Words: Metaphor; Figurative Language; Mannerism; Metaphysical Conceit; Signifier-Signified; Cognitive Poetics; Synaesthesia; Componential Analysis; Romantic Metaphor; Grotesque; Sensuous Metaphor; Split & Integrated Focus; Concrete vs. Abstract; Witty Metaphor; Emotional Metaphor; Jokes & Metaphors; Lateralisation; Tip-of-the-Tongue.
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