Fear of Metaphor, Part 3

This post is the next in an ongoing series.

The fear of metaphor is of ancient provenance. If you'll recall, we left off with Plato, via his gnomic persona, Socrates, banishing poets—the employers of metaphors—from the deliberations of democracy because they appealed not to truth and reason but incited the desires and passions of the populace. Of course, Socrates is quick to say the reasonable man should "fear[] for the safety of the city which is within him [and] be on guard against her seductions." Hardly a rational riposte.

Indeed, this is not the only time Plato relies on affective language to get his point across. His metaphor of the cave is one of the great talking points in the history of philosophy:

[Socrates] And now, I said, let me show in a figure how far our nature is enlightened or unenlightened: --Behold! human beings living in a underground cave, which has a mouth open towards the light and reaching all along the cave; here they have been from their childhood, and have their legs and necks chained so that they cannot move, and can only see before them, being prevented by the chains from turning round their heads. Above and behind them a fire is blazing at a distance, and between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised way; and you will see, if you look, a low wall built along the way, like the screen which marionette players have in front of them, over which they show the puppets.

[Glaucon] I see.

[Socrates] And do you see, I said, men passing along the wall carrying all sorts of vessels, and statues and figures of animals made of wood and stone and various materials, which appear over the wall? Some of them are talking, others silent.

[Glaucon] You have shown me a strange image, and they are strange prisoners.

[Socrates] Like ourselves, I replied; and they see only their own shadows, or the shadows of one another, which the fire throws on the opposite wall of the cave?

[Glaucon] True, he said; how could they see anything but the shadows if they were never allowed to move their heads?

[Socrates] And of the objects which are being carried in like manner they would only see the shadows?

[Glaucon] Yes, he said.

[Socrates] And if they were able to converse with one another, would they not suppose that they were naming what was actually before them?

[Glaucon] Very true.

[Socrates] And suppose further that the prison had an echo which came from the other side, would they not be sure to fancy when one of the passers-by spoke that the voice which they heard came from the passing shadow?

[Glaucon] No question, he replied.

[Socrates] To them, I said, the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images.

[Glaucon] That is certain.

Ironically, one of the most articulate men of his or any other generation—the man who banished the metaphoricists from The Republic—had himself to rely on a grand metaphor to express arguably his most seminal idea; to wit: that appearances are not reality and that the language we use to speak about those appearances is yet further removed from a true correspondence with reality.

Ideally, for Plato, political discourse should be grounded in reality and not simply appearances. But not all discourse is political, and, conceivably, not all metaphor is affective.

(to be continued)

Fear of Metaphor, Part 2

(cont'd)

There is a long history of philosophical antipathy to metaphor, dating back practically to the origins of philosophy.

Patrician, conservative, utilitarian Plato felt that poets should be banished from the public discourse of the ideal Republic because their use of figurative language (like the sophist's use of enthymemes) is a bewitchment, a rhetorical incitement which stirs childish passions without regard for the truth or the betterment of the polis.

As is his wont, he sics his annoying, perverse, deformed persona, Socrates—his attack dog or avatar, if you will—on the offenders:

"[Socrates]: If you consider, I said, that when in misfortune we feel a natural hunger and desire to relieve our sorrow by weeping and lamentation, and that this feeling which is kept under control in our own calamities is satisfied and delighted by the poets;—the better nature in each of us, not having been sufficiently trained by reason or habit, allows the sympathetic element to break loose because the sorrow is another’s; and the spectator fancies that there can be no disgrace to himself in praising and pitying any one who comes telling him what a good man he is, and making a fuss about his troubles; he thinks that the pleasure is a gain, and why should he be supercilious and lose this and the poem too? Few persons ever reflect, as I should imagine, that from the evil of other men something of evil is communicated to themselves. And so the feeling of sorrow which has gathered strength at the sight of the misfortunes of others is with difficulty repressed in our own.

How very true!

And does not the same hold also of the ridiculous? There are jests which you would be ashamed to make yourself, and yet on the comic stage, or indeed in private, when you hear them, you are greatly amused by them, and are not at all disgusted at their unseemliness;—the case of pity is repeated;—there is a principle in human nature which is disposed to raise a laugh, and this which you once restrained by reason, because you were afraid of being thought a buffoon, is now let out again; and having stimulated the risible faculty at the theatre, you are betrayed unconsciously to yourself into playing the comic poet at home.

Quite true, he said.

And the same may be said of lust and anger and all the other affections, of desire and pain and pleasure, which are held to be inseparable from every action—in all of them poetry feeds and waters the passions instead of drying them up; she lets them rule, although they ought to be controlled, if mankind are ever to increase in happiness and virtue.

I cannot deny it.

Therefore, Glaucon, I said, whenever you meet with any of the eulogists of Homer declaring that he has been the educator of Hellas, and that he is profitable for education and for the ordering of human things, and that you should take him up again and again and get to know him and regulate your whole life according to him, we may love and honor those who say these things—they are excellent people, as far as their lights extend; and we are ready to acknowledge that Homer is the greatest of poets and first of tragedy writers; but we must remain firm in our conviction that hymns to the gods and praises of famous men are the only poetry which ought to be admitted into our State. For if you go beyond this and allow the honeyed muse to enter, either in epic or lyric verse, not law and the reason of mankind, which by common consent have ever been deemed best, but pleasure and pain will be the rulers in our State.

That is most true, he said.

And now since we have reverted to the subject of poetry, let this our defense serve to show the reasonableness of our former judgment in sending away out of our State an art having the tendencies which we have described; for reason constrained us. But that she may impute to us any harshness or want of politeness, let us tell her that there is an ancient quarrel between philosophy and poetry; of which there are many proofs, such as the saying of ‘the yelping hound howling at her lord,’ or of one ‘mighty in the vain talk of fools,’ and ‘the mob of sages circumventing Zeus,’ and the ‘subtle thinkers who are beggars after all’; and there are innumerable other signs of ancient enmity between them. Notwithstanding this, let us assure our sweet friend and the sister arts of imitation that if she will only prove her title to exist in a well-ordered State we shall be delighted to receive her—we are very conscious of her charms; but we may not on that account betray the truth. I dare say, Glaucon, that you are as much charmed by her as I am, especially when she appears in Homer?

Yes, indeed, I am greatly charmed.

Shall I propose, then, that she be allowed to return from exile but upon this condition only—that she make a defense of herself in lyrical or some other meter?

Certainly.

And we may further grant to those of her defenders who are lovers of poetry and yet not poets the permission to speak in prose on her behalf: let them show not only that she is pleasant but also useful to States and to human life, and we will listen in a kindly spirit; for if this can be proved we shall surely be the gainers—I mean, if there is a use in poetry as well as a delight?

Certainly, he said, we shall be the gainers.

If her defense fails, then, my dear friend, like other persons who are enamored of something, but put a restraint upon themselves when they think their desires are opposed to their interests, so too must we after the manner of lovers give her up, though not without a struggle. We too are inspired by that love of poetry which the education of noble States has implanted in us, and therefore we would have her appear at her best and truest; but so long as she is unable to make good her defense, this argument of ours shall be a charm to us, which we will repeat to ourselves while we listen to her strains; that we may not fall away into the childish love of her which captivates the many. At all events we are well aware that poetry being such as we have described is not to be regarded seriously as attaining to the truth; and he who listens to her, fearing for the safety of the city which is within him, should be on his guard against her seductions and make our words his law.

Yes, he said, I quite agree with you.

Yes, I said, my dear Glaucon, for great is the issue at stake, greater than appears, whether a man is to be good or bad. And what will any one be profited if under the influence of honor or money or power, aye, or under the excitement of poetry, he neglect justice and virtue?

Yes, he said; I have been convinced by the argument, as I believe that any one else would have been." Plato, Republic X (Jowett translation)

Plato here is defending philosophy—reasoned, fact-based argument—against prior attacks of poetry and rhetoric, disciplines which have their bases, he says, not in truth but in the emotions, passions, and ideologies of the people. The source of the initial attacks is lost to time, but it is clear from the Dialogues that the Homerians and sophists were prevailing in the public discourse of the time.

Plato's philosophical defensiveness and his desire to establish a rational basis for public discourse have had a profound impact on Western attitudes about metaphor. And, indeed, a certain skepticism about any politics based on metaphor—e.g., mama grizzly, trickle down economics—is not entirely unhealthy; specificity, rationality, and a basis in causal fact are fair demands to make on the policies and pronouncements of our public figures.

This, however, tells nothing about the place of metaphor in fiction and poetry. Nor does it enlighten us to the nature of metaphor, language, and thought.

Could Plato have been wrong about the emotive basis of metaphor? Are metaphors necessary to frame and, thus, communicate political ideas?

(to be continued)

Fear of Metaphor, Part 1

"What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet" Wm. Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet Act II. Sc. 2.

"A rose is a rose is a rose is a rose." Gertrude Stein, Sacred Emily

"'Le style c’est l’homme', 'Le style c’est l’homme meme'. The first expression has cheap epigrammatic brevity. The second, correct version opens up quite a different perspective. It says that a man’s style is a picture [image] of him." Ludwig Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, p. 78e

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Welcome to the beginning of a new series of posts on the topic of metaphor.

Let's start with some basics. A metaphor is a rhetorical device which attempts to identify one thing with another. Unlike a simile or analogy, a metaphor asserts that one thing is another thing, not just that one is like the other.

My Handbook to Literature defines metaphor as "An implied analogy which imaginatively identifies one object with another and ascribes to the first one or more of the qualities of the second or invests the first with emotional or imaginative qualities associated with the second." (313-14)... "I.A. Richards' distinction between the tenor and the vehicle of a metaphor has been widely accepted and is very useful. The tenor is the idea being expressed or the subject of the comparison; the vehicle is the image by which this idea is conveyed or the subject communicated." (314)

Examples are plentiful:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The Gospel of John 1:1

Moth: They have been at a great feast of languages, and stol'n the scraps.
Costard: O, they have liv'd long on the alms-basket of words. -Wm. Shakespeare, Love's Labour 's Lost. Act V. Sc. 1."

"...while he learned the language (that meagre and fragile thread, Grandfather said, by which the little surface corners and edges of men's secret and solitary lives may be joined for an instant now and then before sinking back into the darkness where the spirit cried for the first time and was not heard and will cry for the last time and will not be heard either)…" Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom!

"Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language." L. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 109

Metaphors are strange and wondrous things. How is it we can say of a man that he is a lion, or a wolf, or a jackrabbit, or a robot? How is it we can say of a woman that she is a kitten, or a bunny, or a cougar, or a planet? And then, even more strange and wondrous, how can we expect to be understood when we do so?

And when writers speak of language as a "meagre and fragile thread," a "great feast," or as a bewitcher, or even as "God", are they speaking of the same thing or different things or different aspects of the same thing? Or do all the metaphors about a thing add up to give us a picture—however incomplete—of the thing, or at least our understanding of the thing? Or are they merely expressive?

Aren't some metaphors better than others? Don't some just fit better? Aren't some simply more precise? And when we get to greater degrees of exactitude are we still using metaphors, or are we merely being descriptive?

What, then, counts as a metaphor? And how do we recognize them when we see them?

Some metaphors are obvious. But recognizing them becomes more problematic when we go beyond individual words, phrases, or thoughts. How do we deal with extended metaphors? Some say an entire novel or poem might be an extended metaphor for ... [whatever]? What if it is and we treat it literally instead of figuratively? Do we miss something? Can it still be meaningful? Is it still a metaphor? etc.

Is the presence and recognition of metaphors strictly contextual? Isn't there a community aspect as well—commonplaces? For example, if we're reading a poem, we know to look for them. If we're listening to a political speech, we know to listen for them. But is that enough?

Is it as with Justice Potter Stewart's gloss on hard-core pornography: I know it when I see it?

What does the nature of metaphor tell us about the nature of language itself? And why, if you're a writer, are they so damned difficult to create? Do the metaphors we use tell us more about ourselves (qua users) than the things they are meant to illuminate?

These are some of the questions I hope to pursue in this new series of posts. I invite you to stay attuned.