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Metaphor is a figure of speech concisely comparing two things, saying that one is the other.^[1] The English metaphor derives from the 16th c. Old French métaphore, from the Latin metaphora “carrying over”, Greek (μεταφορά) metaphorá “transfer”, ^[2] from (μεταφέρω) metaphero “to carry over”, “to transfer” ^[3] and from (μετά) meta “between” ^[4] + (φέρω) phero, “to bear”, “to carry”.^[5] Moreover, metaphor also denotes rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via association, comparison, and resemblance, e.g. antithesis, hyperbole, metonymy, and simile; all are species of metaphor. ^[6]

Structure

The Philosophy of Rhetoric (1936), by I. A. Richards, reports that metaphor is in two parts: the tenor and the vehicle. The tenor is the subject to which attributes are ascribed. The vehicle is the subject whose attributes are borrowed. Other writers employ the general terms ground and figure to denote tenor and the vehicle. Consider the All the world's a stage monologue from As You Like It:

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

In this metaphoric example, "the world" is compared to a stage, describing it with the attributes of “the stage”; "the world" is the tenor, and "a stage" is the vehicle; "men and women" is a secondary tenor, "players" is the secondary vehicle.

In cognitive linguistics, the terms target and source correspond to the terms tenor and vehicle. In this nomenclature, metaphors are named with the small-capital typographic convention TARGET IS SOURCE, and all-capitals when small-caps are unavailable; in this notation, the metaphor discussed above would be LIFE IS THEATRE. In a conceptual metaphor the elements of an extended metaphor constitute the metaphor’s mapping — in the Shakespeare quotation above, exits would be mapped to “death” and entrances mapped to “birth”.

Types, terms, and categories

Hi murray and nick A metaphor is more forceful (active) than an analogy, because metaphor asserts two things are the same, whereas analogy acknowledges difference; other rhetorical comparative figures of speech, such as metonymy, parable, simile, and synecdoche, are species of metaphor distinguished by how the comparison is communicated. ^[7] The metaphor category also contains these specialized types:

allegory: An extended metaphor wherein a story illustrates an important attribute of the subject
catachresis: A mixed metaphor used by design and accident (a rhetorical fault)
parable: An extended metaphor narrated as an anecdote illustrating and teaching a moral lesson

Common types

A dead metaphor is one in which the sense of the transferred image is absent. Examples: "to grasp a concept" and "to gather what you've understood" use physical action as a metaphor for understanding, most do not visualize the action; dead metaphors normally go unnoticed. Some people distinguish between a "dead metaphor" whose origin most speakers ignore, e.g. "to break the ice". Others use dead metaphor to denote both concepts, and generally use it to describe a metaphoric cliché.
An extended metaphor (conceit), establishes a principal subject (comparison) and subsidiary subjects (comparisons). The As You Like It quotation is a good example, the world is described as a stage, and then men and women are subsidiary subjects further described in the same context.
A mixed metaphor is one that leaps from one identification to a second identification inconsistent with the first. Example: "He stepped up to the plate and grabbed the bull by the horns" two common metaphors for "taking action" are confused, and create a nonsensical image.
Per Hans Blumenberg’s metaphorology, absolute metaphor denotes a figure or a concept that cannot be reduced to, or replaced with solely conceptual thought and language. Absolute metaphors, e.g. “light” (for “truth”) and “seafaring” (for “human existence”) – have distinctive meanings (unlike the literal meanings), and, thereby, function as orientations in the world, and as theoretic questions, such as presenting the world as a whole. Because they exist at the pre-predicative level, express and structure pragmatic and theoretical views of Man and the World.

Uncommon types

Other types of metaphor have been identified as well, though the nomenclatures are not as universally accepted:

An absolute or paralogical metaphor (sometimes called an anti-metaphor) is one in which there is no discernible point of resemblance between the idea and the image. e.g. “light” as a metaphor for truth or virtue.
An active metaphor is one which by contrast to a dead metaphor, is not part of daily language and is noticeable as a metaphor.
A complex metaphor is one which mounts one identification on another. Example: "That throws some light on the question." Throwing light is a metaphor: there is no actual light, and a question is not the sort of thing that can be lit up.
A compound or loose metaphor is one that catches the mind with several points of similarity. Examples: "He has the wild stag's foot." This phrase suggests grace and speed as well as daring.
A dying metaphor is a derogatory term coined by George Orwell in his essay Politics and the English Language. Orwell defines a dying metaphor as a metaphor that isn't dead (dead metaphors are different, as they are treated like ordinary words), but has been worn out and is used because it saves people the trouble of inventing an original phrase for themselves. In short, a cliché. Example: Achilles' heel. Orwell suggests that writers scan their work for such dying forms that they have 'seen regularly before in print' and replace them with alternative language patterns.
An epic metaphor 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)
An implicit metaphor is one in which the tenor is not specified but implied. Example: "Shut your trap!" Here, the mouth of the listener is the unspecified tenor.
An implied or unstated metaphor is a metaphor not explicitly stated or obvious that compares two things by using adjectives that commonly describe one thing, but are used to describe another comparing the two.
An example: "Golden baked skin", comparing bakery goods to skin or "green blades of nausea", comparing green grass to the pallor of a nausea-stic person or "leafy golden sunset" comparing the sunset to a tree in the fall.
A simple or tight metaphor is one in which there is but one point of resemblance between the tenor and the vehicle. Example: "Cool it". In this example, the vehicle, "Cool", is a temperature and nothing else, so the tenor, "it", can only be grounded to the vehicle by one attribute.
A submerged metaphor is one in which the vehicle is implied, or indicated by one aspect. Example: "my winged thought". Here, the audience must supply the image of the bird.
A synecdochic metaphor is a trope that is both a metaphor and a synecdoche in which a small part of something is chosen to represent the whole so as to highlight certain elements of the whole.

Use outside of rhetoric

The term metaphor is also used for the following terms that are not a part of rhetoric:

A cognitive metaphor is the association of an object to an experience outside the object's environment.
A conceptual metaphor is an underlying association that is systematic in both language and thought.
A root metaphor is the underlying worldview that shapes an individual's understanding of a situation.
A therapeutic metaphor is an experience that allows one to learn about more than just that experience.
A visual metaphor provides a frame or window on experience. Metaphors can also be implied and extended throughout pieces of literature.

History in literature and language

Metaphor is present in the oldest written Sumerian language narrative, the Epic of Gilgamesh:

My friend, the swift mule, fleet wild ass of the mountain, panther of the wilderness, after we joined together and went up into the mountain, fought the Bull of Heaven and killed it, and overwhelmed Humbaba, who lived in the Cedar Forest, now what is this sleep that has seized you? — (Trans. Kovacs, 1989)

In this example, the friend is compared to a mule, a wild donkey, and a panther to indicate that the speaker sees traits from these animals in his friend (A comparison between two or more unlike objects).

The idea of metaphor can be traced back to Aristotle who, in his “Poetics” (around 335 BC), defines “metaphor” as follows: “Metaphor is the application of a strange term either transferred from the genus and applied to the species or from the species and applied to the genus, or from one species to another or else by analogy.”^[8] For the sake of clarity and comprehension it might additionally be useful to quote the following two alternative translations: “Metaphor is the application of an alien name by transference either from genus to species, or from species to genus, or from species to species, or by analogy, that is, proportion.”^[9] Or, as Halliwell puts it in his translation: “Metaphor is the application of a word that belongs to another thing: either from genus to species, species to genus, species to species, or by analogy.”^[10]

Therefore, the key aspect of a metaphor is a specific transference of a word from one context into another. With regard to the four kinds of metaphors which Aristotle distincts against each other the last one (transference by analogy) is the most eminent one so that all important theories on metaphor have a reference to this characterization.

The Greek plays of Sophocles, Aeschylus, and Euripides, among others, were almost invariably allegorical, showing the tragedy of the protagonists, either to caution the audience metaphorically about temptation, or to lambast famous individuals of the day by inferring similarities with the caricatures in the play.

Novelist and essayist Giannina Braschi states, "Metaphors and Similes are the beginning of the democratic system of envy."

Even when they are not intentional, they can be drawn between most writing or language and other topics. In this way it can be seen that any theme in literature is a metaphor, using the story to convey information about human perception of the theme in question.

In historical linguistics

In historical onomasiology or, more generally, in historical linguistics, metaphor is defined as semantic change based on similarity, i.e. a similarity in form or function between the original concept named by a word and the target concept named by this word^[11]. Example: mouse 'small, gray rodent' > 'small, gray, mouse-shaped computer device'.

Some recent linguistic theories view language as by its nature all metaphorical; or that language in essence is metaphorical. ^[12]

Notes

^ The Oxford Companion to the English Language (1992) pp.653–55
^ Metaphora, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, at Perseus
^ Metaphero, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, at Perseus
^ Meta, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, at Perseus
^ Phero, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, at Perseus
^ The Oxford Companion to the English Language (1992) pp.653–55
^ The Oxford Companion to the English Language (1992) pp.653–55
^ Aristotle in 23 Volumes, Vol. 23, translated by W.H. Fyfe. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1932, 1457b.
^ Aristotle, Poetics, trans. I. Bywater, in The Complete Works of Aristotle, ed. Jonathan Barnes (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1984), vol 2, 1457b.
^ Aristotle: Poetics. Translated by Stephen Halliwell; Longinus: On the Sublime; Demetrius: On Style (Loeb Classical Library No. 199), 1996, 1457b.
^ Cf. Joachim Grzega (2004), Bezeichnungswandel: Wie, Warum, Wozu? Ein Beitrag zur englischen und allgemeinen Onomasiologie, Heidelberg: Winter, and Blank, Andreas (1997), Prinzipien des lexikalischen Bedeutungswandels am Beispiel der romanischen Sprachen, Tübingen: Niemeyer.
^ See, for example, Vilayanur S Ramachandran, Reith Lectures 2003 The Emerging Mind, lecture 4 "Purple Numbers and Sharp Cheese", http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/reith2003/lecture4.shtml

References

Stefano Arduini (2007). (ed.) Metaphors, Roma, Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura.
Aristotle. Poetics. Trans. I. Bywater. In The Complete Works of Aristotle: The Revised Oxford Translation. (1984). 2 Vols. Ed. Jonathan Barnes. Princeton, Princeton University Press.
I. A. Richards. (1936). The Philosophy of Rhetoric. Oxford, Oxford University Press.
Max Black (1954). Metaphor, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 55, pp. 273-294.
Max Black (1962). Models and Metaphor, Ithaca, Cornell University Press.
Max Black (1979). More about Metaphor, in A. Ortony (ed) Metaphor & Thought.
Clive Cazeaux (2007). Metaphor and Continental Philosophy: From Kant to Derrida. New York: Routledge.
L. J. Cohen (1979). The Semantics of Metaphor, in A. Ortony (ed) Metaphor & Thought
Donald Davidson. (1978). "What Metaphors Mean." Reprinted in Inquiries Into Truth and Interpretation. (1984), Oxford, Oxford University Press.
Jacques Derrida (1982). "White Mythology: Metaphor in the Text of Philosophy." In Margins of Philosophy. Trans. Alan Bass. Chicago, University of Chicago Press.
Paul Ricoeur (1975). The Rule of Metaphor: Multi-Disciplinary Studies in the Creation of Meaning in Language, trans. Robert Czerny with Kathleen McLaughlin and John Costello, S. J., London: Routledge and Kegan Paul 1978. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 1977)
John Searle (1979). “Metaphor,” in A. Ortony (ed) Metaphor & Thought

External links

* A short history of metaphor

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[1] The Oxford Companion to the English Language (1992) pp.653–55

[2] Metaphora, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, at Perseus

[3] Metaphero, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, at Perseus

[4] Meta, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, at Perseus

[5] Phero, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, at Perseus

[6] The Oxford Companion to the English Language (1992) pp.653–55

[7] The Oxford Companion to the English Language (1992) pp.653–55

[8] Aristotle in 23 Volumes, Vol. 23, translated by W.H. Fyfe. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1932, 1457b.

[9] Aristotle, Poetics, trans. I. Bywater, in The Complete Works of Aristotle, ed. Jonathan Barnes (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1984), vol 2, 1457b.

[10] Aristotle: Poetics. Translated by Stephen Halliwell; Longinus: On the Sublime; Demetrius: On Style (Loeb Classical Library No. 199), 1996, 1457b.

[11] Cf. Joachim Grzega (2004), Bezeichnungswandel: Wie, Warum, Wozu? Ein Beitrag zur englischen und allgemeinen Onomasiologie, Heidelberg: Winter, and Blank, Andreas (1997), Prinzipien des lexikalischen Bedeutungswandels am Beispiel der romanischen Sprachen, Tübingen: Niemeyer.

[12] See, for example, Vilayanur S Ramachandran, Reith Lectures 2003 The Emerging Mind, lecture 4 "Purple Numbers and Sharp Cheese", http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/reith2003/lecture4.shtml

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 {{Unreferenced section|date=February 2009}}
-A metaphor is more forceful (active) than an [[analogy]], because metaphor asserts two things are the same, whereas analogy acknowledges difference; other [[rhetoric|rhetorical]] comparative figures of speech, such as [[metonymy]], [[parable]], [[simile]], and  [[synecdoche]], are species of metaphor distinguished by how the comparison is communicated. <ref>''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (1992) pp.653–55</ref> The metaphor category also contains these specialized types:
+Hi murray and nick A metaphor is more forceful (active) than an [[analogy]], because metaphor asserts two things are the same, whereas analogy acknowledges difference; other [[rhetoric|rhetorical]] comparative figures of speech, such as [[metonymy]], [[parable]], [[simile]], and  [[synecdoche]], are species of metaphor distinguished by how the comparison is communicated. <ref>''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (1992) pp.653–55</ref> The metaphor category also contains these specialized types:
 * [[allegory]]: An extended metaphor wherein a story illustrates an important attribute of the subject
 * [[catachresis]]: A mixed metaphor used by design and accident (a rhetorical fault)