William H. Gass - Gass's Opinion of Metaphor

Gass's Opinion of Metaphor

Gass' view on the topic of metaphor is complex and thoroughly encompassing. Below is an excerpt from a collection of interviews which brings to light his ideas on the subject.

'Though much of Gass's central aesthetic has remained constant, there have been gradual shifts in his views of metaphor and ontology of the text. His view of metaphor is far more expansive than that proposed in his dissertation . Gass tells LeClair that "etaphor has been thought to be a pet of language, a peculiar relation between subject and predicate . . . ut you can make metaphors by juxtaposing objects and in lots of other ways" (Paris Review). In other words, metaphor need not be a purely linguistic matter, and perhaps not surprisingly Gass's change in his explanation of metaphor from graduate school to now signals a change in the focus of his fiction. As noted earlier Gass claims to construct self-contained systems of ideas, but in these interviews, one can trace a growing concern with the relationship of his fiction to the world, as he makes clear to LeClair: "I've been principally interested in establishing the relationship between fiction and the world. If we can see that relationship as a metaphorical one, then we are already several steps in the direction of our models."'