Apr 15, 2009
Do metaphors keep us at a distance from what they’re describing or draw us nearer?
Despite metaphors being occasionally obscure, aren’t they meant to elicit fresh, clarifying imagery in our minds of the literal thing being described?
(In reference to Challies’ question.)
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Yes, but metaphors often get more obscure the further those who are reading them are from the time, place, language and culture they came out of. Then metaphors can elicit fresh meaning that is possibly completely opposed to what the metaphor is meant to represent.
It can go both ways, I guess. Putting things in context always helps in understanding the metaphors.
Metaphors can bring us up close and personal or create a polite distance. They’re extremely versatile creatures.
It depends on the intent of the speaker, and the listener’s familiarity with the subject matter used for the metaphor… Right?
Everything is a metaphor for something else! Like, literally, all things point towards Eternity. Take 1 Corinthians 13:12 and Hebrews 8:5. It’s all reflections and shadows of complete Truth… the key (a metaphor for that which that can “unlock” a “door”) is we often (“ingrained” intuitions aside) need to have the Holy Spirit in us, as Jesus did (parables), to be able to understand the meaning and then express it in a useful, God glorifying, way. But then even Jesus had to explain what He meant, what with all them “shut eyes” and “deaf ears”… Looks like analogies, with all their potency, are still a two way dependent communication device.
if i understand what you’re getting at (and what Tim Challies is getting at), then applied to, oh, i don’t know, Song of Solomon, the question is:
does the figurative language/imagery serve to distance us from the details of an amorous encounter and simply create a feeling, or does it make the picture all the more more vivid in the reader/hearer’s mind?
i can’t say i know the answer. it’s a really interesting question, though. Tim seems to think the metaphor produces a lovely kind of mystery, more about creating a hint, taste, or feeling than giving a play-by-play. i think this is true about metaphor in general. but others might think say that metaphor does the opposite, too – it takes an ethereal experience and puts it in concrete terms. the nature imagery in SoS is certainly earthy and sensuous.
thinking about other metaphors in literature, i think that in many of them, it actually does seem to go both ways – making the tangible less earthbound and making the otherworldly more tangible. can that be possible?
What about metafives?
And what about buttfors?
Not gonna bite, Joe, not gonna bite.
What metaphor is decidedly not: euphemism. Not inherently, anyway.
KP
If poetic metaphors are meant to keep us at a distance and are not meant to elicit fresh meaning or be closely examined to determine what that fresh meaning is, then I wasted a lot of time in college lit and poetry classes.
Where do I get a refund?
I suppose my profs should be out of a job too.
I don’t even know where to start. So I’m not going to.
But in short, I would say that metaphors do both. The mystery bred by a great metaphor is in the analogical distance it creates, the illumination shed by the uncanny association a great poet makes between two seemingly unrelated things.
And KP’s right. Metaphors are not euphemisms.
A properly chosen metaphor can provide poignancy to an otherwise mundane series of statements.
On the other hand, a poorly chosen metaphor can be confusing to the point of losing one’s readers.
I agree with KP: metaphors are not euphemisms.
Carissa said:
does the figurative language/imagery serve to distance us from the details of an amorous encounter and simply create a feeling, or does it make the picture all the more vivid in the reader/hearer’s mind?
My understanding of metaphors:
They serve to illustrate the subject by temporarily taking the focus off the literal, concrete perspective of the subject and painting it, or certain aspects of it, non-literally in such a way that the audience comes to a deeper, richer understanding of the subject—a sort of linguistic magnifying glass often using natural imagery.
I do not think that metaphors can exist in a vacuum—they must refer to something particular which must be known already to some degree by the audience if the metaphor is to be anything more than vague.
Faithful readers, engage my ideas!
Also, could someone give an example of a metaphor intended to distance the subject? It seems like such a thing would violate the purpose of metaphors.
A closer understanding of the concrete reality seems to be the point.
This is perhaps only a conceptual cousin to this topic, but I think this gets to the heart of the matter aptly:
“The aim of good prose words is to mean what they say. The aim of good poetical words is to mean what they do not say.” G.K. Chesterton – Daily News.4-22-05
Tennyson wrote, “For words, like Nature, half reveal and half conceal the Soul within.”