Mapping Metaphor in Poetry: Generating New Understandings

1. Mapping Metaphor in Poetry: Generating New Understandings Presented by Dixie K. Keyes Arkansas State University

2. Is metaphor JUST figurative language? • Consider the GENERATIVE power of metaphor….it has constructive character “waiting to be brought to birth.” • Consider METAPHORICAL THOUGHT as an umbrella to a number of figurative language terms: simile, personification, oxymoron, hyperbole, poetic analogy…

3. There’s an implicit third term--understanding that is generated THROUGH metaphorical thought B A Comparison Source Target Tenor Vehicle The third part: New Understandings

4. A description of how metaphors account for growth…. • Metaphors cultivate the mind. They prepare furrows for planting ideas, which in time grow to mature understanding. If the climate is too arid for learning or if work has been neglected for too long, metaphors can break through an unreceptive crust to more fertile ground where the nutrients of teaching can be absorbed. (Peele, 1984, p. 2)

5. Consider Mapping Metaphors for enhanced understanding… Father— Central yet absent like a tuba Missing from a symphony battered by Himself broken apart and beaten, a tuba that angered its Player—the shine lost, the dents deep, the Mouthpiece still intact, lying in a pawn shop, lost to the highest Bidder. Father— no longer necessary, your shine, memories of your elegance, and the waves of notoriety in my heart have rubbed callous melodies— Empty Exhaltation. Father Tenor = Source = Tuba

6. Target=Father Members-mind, heart, body, effort Purpose-role model, encourager, provider of unconditional love Means-hugs, laughter, time, presence, support Source=Tuba Members-shine, dents, mouthpiece, melody Purpose-part of a symphony, make music, deep resonance, central melody Means-player/musician, sheet music, practice Let’s map it….FATHER like a TUBA New Understandings?

7. “A Rainy Morning” by Ted Kooser in his bookDelights & Shadows A young woman in a wheelchair, wearing a black nylon poncho spattered with rain, is pushing herself through the morning. You have seen how pianists sometimes bend forward to strike the keys, then lift their hands, draw back to rest, then lean again to strike just as the chord fades. Such is the way this woman strikes at the wheels, then lifts her long white fingers, letting them float, then bends again to strike just as the chair slows, as if into a silence. So expertly she plays the chords of this difficult music she has mastered, her wet face beautiful in its concentration, while the wind turns the pages of rain.

8. Some canonical poetry…. • James Wright’s “The Jewel”: • There is this cave • in the air behind my body • That nobody is going to touch: • A Cloister, a silence • Closing around a blossom of fire. • When I stand upright in the wind, • My bones turn to dark emeralds. • Cave = silence, a cloister • Bones = dark emeralds What does “cloister” mean? Etymology: • Middle English cloistre, from Anglo-French, from Medieval Latin claustrum, from Latin, bar, bolt, from claudere to close — more at close Date: • 13th century 1 a: a monastic establishment b: an area within a monastery or convent to which the religious are normally restricted c: monastic life d: a place or state of seclusion2: a covered passage on the side of a court usually having one side walled and the other an open arcade or colonnade

9. Epilogue • By Robert Lowell • Those blessed structures, plot and rhyme— • why are they no help to me now • I want to make • something imagined, not recalled? • I hear the noise of my own voice: • The painter’s vision is not a lens, • it trembles to caress the light. • But sometimes everything I write • with the threadbare art of my eye • seems a snapshot, • lurid, rapid, garish, grouped, • heightened from life, • Yet paralyzed by fact. • All’s misalliance. • Yet why not say what happened? • Pray for the grace of accuracy • Vermeer gave to the sun’s illumination • stealing like the tide across a map • to his girl solid with yearning. • We are poor passing facts, • warned by that to give • each figure in the photograph • his living name.

10. The Willows of Massachusetts • By Denise Levertov • Animal willows of November • In pelt of gold enduring when all else • Has let go all ornament • And stands naked in the cold. • Cold shine of sun on swamp water • Cold caress of slant beam on bough, • Gray light on brown bark. • Willows—last to relinquish a leaf, • Curious, patient, lion-headed, tense • With energy, watching • The serene cold through a curtain • of tarnished strands.

11. Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night by Dylan Thomas • Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that good night. • Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. • Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, Do not go gentle into that good night. • Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. • And you, my father, there on the sad height, Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray. Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

12. I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,And Mourners to and froKept treading—treading—till it seemedThat Sense was breaking through— • And when they all were seated,A Service, like a Drum—Kept beating—beating—till I thoughtMy Mind was going numb— • And then I heard them lift a BoxAnd creak across my SoulWith those same Boots of Lead, again,Then Space—began to toll, • As all the Heavens were a Bell,And Being, but an Ear,And I, and Silence, some strange RaceWrecked, solitary, here— • And then a Plank in Reason, broke,And I dropped down, and down— • Emily Dickinson

13. Mapping can also lead to new understandings of TYPES of metaphor… • Extended metaphor • Epic or Homeric simile • Mixed metaphor • Dead metaphor • Synechdochic metaphor • Paralogical metaphor • Experiential metaphor • Complex metaphor • Loose or compound metaphor • Implicit metaphor (tenor is implied) • Submerged metaphor • Tight metaphor (grounded in only one point of resemblance) • Root metaphor • Conceptual metaphor • Dying metaphor

14. Let’s go beyond the lit textbook definition of metaphor….feel the power! dkeyes@astate.edu