Metaphor and Meaning

Catalog description

Aristotle described metaphor in The Poetics as "the mark of genius, for to make good metaphors implies an eye for resemblances" (XXII). Since ancient times, poets and philosophers have written about metaphor and its power, while visual artists have transposed the techniques of figurative language from the verbal to the visual. Metaphor has been employed in texts as ornamentation, as a means of introducing new ideas and concepts, and as a way of imitating the working of the mind itself. In this class, we investigate how metaphor, verbal and visual, influences our processes of thinking, creating, and innovating, both intellectually and artistically. And we experiment with making our own metaphors, in words and pictures. Readings will range over poetry, philosophy, theory of art, and linguistics, including essays by Plato, Paul Ricoeur, I.A. Richards, Max Black, Wayne Booth, George Lakoff, and Rudolf Arnheim; poetry by Shakespeare, Campion, Rossetti, Rilke, Stevens, Wordsworth, and Bishop, concrete poetry, and Virginia Woolf's novel To the Lighthouse.