{"id":6401,"date":"2009-12-25T04:12:12","date_gmt":"2009-12-25T08:12:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fryeblog.blog.lib.mcmaster.ca\/?page_id=6401"},"modified":"2009-12-25T04:12:12","modified_gmt":"2009-12-25T08:12:12","slug":"an-outline-of-the-expanding-world-of-metaphor","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/an-outline-of-the-expanding-world-of-metaphor\/","title":{"rendered":"An Outline of “The Expanding World of Metaphor”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Frye on Metaphor: An Outline of \u201cThe Expanding World of Metaphor\u201d(from Myth and Metaphor, 108\u201323)<\/strong><\/p>\n

O mysteries at least two score
\nWith \u201cNorthrop Frye on metaphor.\u201d
\nBut let us turn our metascope
\nOn what Frye says about this trope.
\nNo similes for Northrop Frye:
\nLikeness can\u2019t identify.<\/em><\/p>\n

1.\u00a0 The movement or pattern of Frye\u2019s thought in this essay is from contraction to expansion.<\/p>\n

Contraction<\/p>\n

Literature<\/p>\n

Art of words (language): Frye leaves the whole question of language alone<\/p>\n

Art of words (language): Frye restricts his discussion to art<\/em>, or so it first appears<\/p>\n

Structural patterns<\/p>\n

Accidental sound patterns\u00a0 [\u201cfive miles meandering with a mazy motion\u201d (Coleridge)]<\/p>\n

Puns, ambiguities [\u201cwe die and rise the same\u201d (Donne)]<\/p>\n

All figurative language<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0 Figurative language is a matter of \u201cresonance among signifiers\u201d rather that the relation of signifiers to signifieds.\u00a0 That is, the important thing about poetic language is the way that words relate to other words in the poem rather than to things in the outside world.\u00a0 In the Coleridge line above, for example, the important thing is the way that \u201cmiles\u201d relates to other words in the line, and to the poem as a whole, rather than to the facts that a mile is 5,280 feet as a unit of measure.<\/p>\n

3.\u00a0 [A little digression here on the two contexts for poetry (the poem\u2019s meanings for the poet\u2019s time and its meaning for ours) and the importance of poetry as an oral convention.<\/p>\n

4. P. 111.\u00a0 Argument turns back to figurative language.\u00a0 Frye makes several points here:<\/p>\n

Metaphor is based on the grammatical model of identifying two things: A is B<\/p>\n

This is a primitive mode of thought in which some aspect of human personality is identified with something natural.\u00a0 In primitive religion, we have the same thing: gods identified with a natural feature: sun-god, tree-god, river-god, rain-god, thunder-god, etc.<\/p>\n

In primitive culture, no distinction between subject and object.\u00a0 In such a situation, Frye says, \u201ca channel or current of energy is opened up between the human and the natural worlds.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is similar to what Heidegger calls \u201cecstatic metaphor.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cEcstatic\u201d from the Greek ekstasis<\/em> = ex<\/em> (from) + stasis<\/em> (state of standing).\u00a0 That is, in ecstasy one is moved from a stationary or passive state into a trance; one is displaced into another kind of state altogether.\u00a0 [Ekstasis<\/em> is the word Longinus uses on his On the Sublime<\/em> to characterize what happens to readers when certain passages in literature create the effect of sublimity: we are put out of our place, we are transported, elevated, lifted out of ourselves.\u00a0 \u201cSublime\u201d is a word that has metaphorical roots itself: sub<\/em> (under) + lim<\/em> (lintel); if one is under the lintel, one is high up.]<\/p>\n

P. 112.\u00a0 Frye\u2019s examples:<\/p>\n

The Lascaux cave drawings: what we have here is an identification between the artist and some animal spirit.<\/p>\n

Primitive music: identification of conscious with something else<\/p>\n

Saul: Samuel tells Saul that when the prophets come down from the hill, he will prophecy with them and he will be turned into or identified with another man.<\/p>\n

5.\u00a0 The essence of Frye\u2019s comments on consciousness in p. 112 are drawn from Julian Jaynes\u2019s The Origins of Consciousness and the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind<\/em>.\u00a0 Jaynes maintains that consciousness arose about 1000 B.C. when there was a synthesis of the right and the left brain.\u00a0 Then, from about the 10th<\/sup>\u20132nd<\/sup> centuries B.C. brains became bicameral, that is, split as in schizophrenia.\u00a0 For Frye this means that human beings began to become aware of the difference between subject (the perceiving self) and the object (things outside the self).\u00a0 With this comes the sense of literature as something hypothetical, fictional, play-like, not related to belief.\u00a0 Metaphor, in other words, becomes literary.<\/p>\n

In Ovid, we get the disintegration of metaphor.\u00a0 People get changed into trees and rocks and flowers and animals in the 250 stories of his Metamorpooses<\/em>.\u00a0 There is no longer an identity between the self and the natural world.\u00a0 They, in effect, lose their humanity, their identity, or their original identity is reduced to something less than human.<\/p>\n

Now for Frye this is something to be regretted.\u00a0 He prefers the primitive conception.\u00a0 He wants to maintain that the ordinary view that such primitive conceptions of identity are something we need to outgrow is misguided.\u00a0 Thus his punch line in the first part of the essay: \u201c”One of the social functions of literature is to keep alive the metaphorical way of thinking and of using words\u201d (p. 113).\u00a0 He calls on L\u00e9vy-Bruhl\u2019s notion of participation mystique<\/em>, a mystique caused by participatory ritual.\u00a0 This is a communal rite associated with \u201ccharm\u201d or magic.\u00a0 In primitive societies it could be sustained for hours through dance.\u00a0 In our own society, it survives in such things as college yells, rock concerts, and the mesmerizing rhetoric of someone like Hitler.\u00a0 We see it perhaps also in charismatic religious services, with their chanting, speaking in tongues, and other trances.<\/p>\n

<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Frye on Metaphor: An Outline of \u201cThe Expanding World of Metaphor\u201d(from Myth and Metaphor, 108\u201323) O mysteries at least two score With \u201cNorthrop Frye on metaphor.\u201d But let us turn our metascope On what Frye says about this trope. No similes for Northrop Frye: Likeness can\u2019t identify. 1.\u00a0 The movement or pattern of Frye\u2019s thought […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"class_list":["post-6401","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nAn Outline of "The Expanding World of Metaphor" - The Educated Imagination<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/an-outline-of-the-expanding-world-of-metaphor\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"An Outline of "The Expanding World of Metaphor" - The Educated Imagination\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Frye on Metaphor: An Outline of \u201cThe Expanding World of Metaphor\u201d(from Myth and Metaphor, 108\u201323) O mysteries at least two score With \u201cNorthrop Frye on metaphor.\u201d But let us turn our metascope On what Frye says about this trope. 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