'Like, yet unlike,' is Merry's comment in The Lord of the Rings when he first sees Gandalf and Saruman together: Gandalf, returned from the dead, has assumed the white robes formerly worn by Saruman, who has succumbed to despair and been corrupted by evil and is about to be deposed. So we have two people … Continue reading ‘Like, yet unlike.’
Tag: Vita Sackville-West
‘These great concurrences of things’
One of the main ideas I pursue here is that the invention of writing has radically altered the way we think, not immediately, but eventually, through its impact on speech, which it transforms from one mode of expression among many into our main instrument of thought, which we call Language, in which the spoken form … Continue reading ‘These great concurrences of things’
The Shadow and the Stone: reflections on the mechanism of metaphor
I mentioned elsewhere that there is a puzzle in our use of metaphor to expand our range of thought: if we think of the unknown in terms of the known concrete, as Vita Sackville-West has it, how does that get us anywhere new? I think I have the answer: it is by a process not … Continue reading The Shadow and the Stone: reflections on the mechanism of metaphor
More on Metaphor: St Patrick and the Queen of Tropes
If we are to rescue metaphor from the charge of disrepute, of being essentially dishonest, saying something is what it is not, then we have to look at it differently. For a start, considering metaphor as a figure of speech is not helpful, for then it it is ranked with a host of others, most … Continue reading More on Metaphor: St Patrick and the Queen of Tropes
Metaphor, Queen of Tropes or Dishonest Harridan?
I’m not saying it’s all metaphor, but it is, just about - and vélophile though I am, if you were to press me on what our most important invention is, I would have to put metaphor first, even ahead of the bicycle. It was something we were taught very badly at school: the focus was … Continue reading Metaphor, Queen of Tropes or Dishonest Harridan?
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