(from the Greek
, meaning "transfer") is language that directly compares seemingly unrelated subjects. In the simplest case, this takes the form: "The [first subject]
is a [second subject]
." More generally, a metaphor is a rhetorical
(from the Greek
, meaning "transfer") is language that directly compares seemingly unrelated subjects. In the simplest case, this takes the form: "The [first subject]
is a [second subject]
." More generally, a metaphor is a rhetorical trope
that describes a first subject as being
or equal to
a second object in some way. Thus, the first subject can be economically described because implicit and explicit attributes from the second subject are used to enhance the description of the first. This device is known for usage in literature
, especially in poetry
, where with few words, emotions and associations from one context are associated with objects and entities in a different context.
A metaphor is generally considered to be more forceful and active than an analogy (metaphor asserts two topics are the same whereas analogy may acknowledge differences. Other rhetorical devices involving comparison, such as metonymy, synecdoche, simile, allegory and parable, share much in common with metaphor but are usually distinguished by the manner in which the comparison between subjects is delivered.
The metaphor, according to I. A. Richards
in The Philosophy of Rhetoric
(1936), consists of two parts: the tenor
. The tenor is the subject to which attributes are ascribed. The vehicle is the subject from which the attributes are borrowed. Other writers employ the general terms ground
to denote what Richards identifies as the tenor and vehicle. Consider: All the world's a stage
- All the world's a stage,
- And all the men and women merely players;
- They have their exits and their entrances; — (William Shakespeare, As You Like It, 2/7)
This well-known quotation is a good example of a metaphor. In this example, "the world" is compared to a stage, the aim being to describe the world by taking well-known attributes from the stage. In this case, the world is the tenor and the stage is the vehicle. "Men and women" are a secondary tenor and "players" is the vehicle for this secondary tenor.
The corresponding terms to 'tenor' &'vehicle' in alternate viewpoint terminology are target and source. In this nomenclature, metaphors are named using the typographical convention "TARGET IS SOURCE", with the domains and the word "is" in small capitals (or capitalized when small-caps are not available); in this notation, the metaphor discussed above would state that "LIFE IS THEATRE". In a conceptual metaphor the elements of an extended metaphor constitute the metaphor's mapping--in the Shakespeare passage above, for example, exits would map to death and entrances to birth.
Metaphors are defined as comparisons without the use of the words "like" or "as", in the average classroom; these comparisons would be called similes.
The author bob corey wrote
- "In his third book of Rhetoric, Aristotle observes that every metaphor comes from the intuition of an analogy between dissimilar things; Middleton Murry insists that the analogy is real but that, until then, it had gone unnoticed (Countries of the Mind, II, 4).
Terms and categorization
The following are the more commonly identified types of Metaphor:
- An extended metaphor, or conceit, sets up a principal subject with several subsidiary subjects or comparisons. The above quote from As You Like It is a very good example. The world is described as a stage and then men and women are subsidiary subjects that are further described in the same context.
- An epic or Homeric simile is an extended metaphor containing details about the vehicle that are not, in fact, necessary for the metaphoric purpose. This can be extended to humorous lengths, for instance: "This is a crisis. A large crisis. In fact, if you've got a moment, it's a twelve-story crisis with a magnificent entrance hall, carpeting throughout, 24-hour porterage and an enormous sign on the roof saying 'This Is a Large Crisis.'" (Blackadder)
- A mixed metaphor is one that leaps from one identification to a second identification that is inconsistent with the first one. Example: "He stepped up to the plate and grabbed the bull by the horns," where two commonly used metaphoric grounds for highlighting the concept of "taking action" are confused to create a nonsensical image.
- A dead metaphor is one in which the sense of a transferred image is not present. Example: "to grasp a concept" or "to gather what you've understood" Both of these phrases use a physical action as a metaphor for understanding (itself a metaphor), but in none of these cases do most speakers of English actually visualize the physical action. Dead metaphors, by definition, normally go unnoticed. Some people make a distinction be