Metaphor and Dialectics as Literary Devices and Communicative Tools
METAPHOR AND DIALECTICS AS LITERARY DEVICES
AND COMMUNICATIVE TOOLS
By
Odum, ikechukwu A.
B.a, m.a, PGD (sc/antr), Mnipr
Metaphor as a Literary Device The classical Greek philosopher, Aristotle declared metaphor one of the highest achievements of poetic style. According to him, “it is the mark of genius – for to make good metaphors implies an eye for resemblances …” (Dukore 50). Our literary world especially, the African literary world is pervaded with metaphors. Metaphor has become an indispensable part of our literary world that recent research into our everyday literary life shows that we use four metaphors per minute (Tompkins and Lawley 1). This statistic could come as a surprise because metaphor has become much fundamental in literature that out of the vast majority of metaphors we use, only the more obvious ones register in our minds. As a literary device, metaphor is both descriptive and prescriptive. It is descriptive in the sense that the essence of a metaphor is understanding and experiencing or describing one kind of thing in terms of another (Lawley and Tompkins 1). Through this use of metaphor as a literal description of unconscious processing, it becomes a gateway to increased awareness, understanding and change. Thus, metaphor specifies and/or constrains our ways of thinking about the original experience thereby invariably influencing the meaning and importance we attach to the original experience, the way it fits with other experiences, and the actions we take as a result hence, its prescriptive essence. As a literary device also, Lawley and Tompkins observe that metaphor is “an active process which is at the very heart of understanding ourselves, others and the world around us” (1); the very essence of literature. To Lawley and Tompkins also metaphor need not be limited to verbal expressions. It can include: Any expression or thing that is symbolic for a person, be that non verbal behaviour self-produced art, an item in the
AND COMMUNICATIVE TOOLS
By
Odum, ikechukwu A.
B.a, m.a, PGD (sc/antr), Mnipr
Metaphor as a Literary Device The classical Greek philosopher, Aristotle declared metaphor one of the highest achievements of poetic style. According to him, “it is the mark of genius – for to make good metaphors implies an eye for resemblances …” (Dukore 50). Our literary world especially, the African literary world is pervaded with metaphors. Metaphor has become an indispensable part of our literary world that recent research into our everyday literary life shows that we use four metaphors per minute (Tompkins and Lawley 1). This statistic could come as a surprise because metaphor has become much fundamental in literature that out of the vast majority of metaphors we use, only the more obvious ones register in our minds. As a literary device, metaphor is both descriptive and prescriptive. It is descriptive in the sense that the essence of a metaphor is understanding and experiencing or describing one kind of thing in terms of another (Lawley and Tompkins 1). Through this use of metaphor as a literal description of unconscious processing, it becomes a gateway to increased awareness, understanding and change. Thus, metaphor specifies and/or constrains our ways of thinking about the original experience thereby invariably influencing the meaning and importance we attach to the original experience, the way it fits with other experiences, and the actions we take as a result hence, its prescriptive essence. As a literary device also, Lawley and Tompkins observe that metaphor is “an active process which is at the very heart of understanding ourselves, others and the world around us” (1); the very essence of literature. To Lawley and Tompkins also metaphor need not be limited to verbal expressions. It can include: Any expression or thing that is symbolic for a person, be that non verbal behaviour self-produced art, an item in the
Cited: April Lambert Levy. Writing Collage English: A Composition Handbook for Speakers of English as a Second Language. Texas: Harcourt Bruce Javanovich Publishers, 1988. Aristotle. “Poetics” in Dramatic Theory and Criticism: Greeks to Grotowski. Bernard .F. Dukore. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1974. 31-55. Effiong Johnson. Aesthetics: The Dialectics and Theatrics of Theatre and Communication. Lagos: Concept Publications Limited, 2004. James Lawley and Penny Tompkins. Learning Metaphor. 2005 20 Aug. 2009. <http://www.cleanlanguage.co.uk/learningmetaphor.html> José Ortega Gasset. The Dehumanization of Art. May 2003. 24 Sept. 2009 <http://www.bartleby.com/dehumanization_gasset.> Penny Tompkins and James Lawley. The Magic of Metaphor. Aug. 2005. 20 Aug. 2009. <http://www.cleanlanguage.co.uk.>