Origins
The term "metaphor" can be traced to the trope described by Aristotle in both his Rhetoric and Poetics as a comparison of two dissimilar objects or concepts in an effort to relate one to the other. James DeMille, in The Elements of Rhetoric, defines metaphor as "an implied comparison between two things of unlike nature, for example, 'The colorful display was a magnet for anybody in the room.'" Using DeMille’s example, a critic studying metaphor would explore how normally "display" and "magnet" are not considered synonyms. However, in using "magnet" as a metaphor, the above sentence implies that the "display" possess properties of a magnet and draws objects—or, in this case, people—in the room toward it.
In a broader sense, metaphoric criticism can illuminate the world in which we live by analyzing the language—and, in particular, the metaphors—that surround us. The notion that metaphors demonstrate worldviews originates in the work of Kenneth Burke and has been taken up further in the cognitive sciences, particularly by George Lakoff.
Read more about this topic: Metaphoric Criticism
Famous quotes containing the word origins:
“Lucretius
Sings his great theory of natural origins and of wise conduct; Plato
smiling carves dreams, bright cells
Of incorruptible wax to hive the Greek honey.”
—Robinson Jeffers (1887–1962)
“Compare the history of the novel to that of rock ‘n’ roll. Both started out a minority taste, became a mass taste, and then splintered into several subgenres. Both have been the typical cultural expressions of classes and epochs. Both started out aggressively fighting for their share of attention, novels attacking the drama, the tract, and the poem, rock attacking jazz and pop and rolling over classical music.”
—W. T. Lhamon, U.S. educator, critic. “Material Differences,” Deliberate Speed: The Origins of a Cultural Style in the American 1950s, Smithsonian (1990)
“The origins of clothing are not practical. They are mystical and erotic. The primitive man in the wolf-pelt was not keeping dry; he was saying: “Look what I killed. Aren’t I the best?””
—Katharine Hamnett (b. 1948)