Kathryn's notes on "The Metaphor"

I know it's not the reading I was assigned to take notes for, but I was taking notes anyway, so I figured it couldn't hurt to post them.

Notes on “The Metaphor” by Borges

Page 1:

*Chinese metaphor: World = Ten Thousand Things (Beings)
*All metaphors are made by linking two different things together.

Page 2:

*Why use stock metaphors when there are so many options?
*Argentine poet Lugones: Ever word is a dead metaphor. –Statement is in itself a metaphor.
*Etymologically speaking, all words are based in metaphor.

Page 3:

*Examination of Metaphors:

*Eyes and Stars: Different phrasing, very different connotation.
-Plato: “I wish I were the night…” –Loving/Tender
-“The stars look down.” –Condescending
-Chesterton: “…a monster made of eyes.” –Frightening

Page 4:

*More examples:
-Time flowing like a river.
-Women and flowers

Page 5:

*Essential pattern of metaphor: The feeling that life is a dream
-“We are such stuff as dreams are made on.” –Shakespeare
-Contradiction in that we are dreamers but can still make such sweeping statements.
-This line belongs more to philosophy/metaphysics.
-Chuan Tzu: Dreamt he was a butterfly. Wondered whether he was Chuan Tzu who dreamt he was a butterfly or a butterfly who dreamt he was Chuan Tzu.





Page 6:

*Another pattern: Sleeping and Dying
-Homer: “iron sleep of death” –Sleep made of ruthless material
-Frost: “And miles to go before I sleep.” (Repeated)
-First time: miles = physical miles; sleep = actual sleep
-Second time: miles = time; sleep = die/rest
-Necessary to imply rather than state.
-Emerson: “Arguments convince nobody.” Because they are presented as arguments.
-When something is hinted at, there is a “hospitality in our imagination.”

Page 7:

*Martin Buber: Philosophy presented as poetry.

*Another pattern: Battle and Fire
-Examples in the Iliad and Finnesburg

Page 8:

*A few patterns, endless variations.

*Cummings example of Dream—Life:
-“Resembles something that has never occurred.” (Talking about life.)

*Less common metaphorical patterns:

*Persian Literature:
-Moon is “the mirror of time”
-Whether the moon is a mirror or not is not important because poetry speaks to the imagination.

Page 9:

*Mirror = Good metaphor for moon.
-Mirror –Brightness and fragility of moon.
-Time –Remembering that clear moon is old as time.
*Kipling: “A rose red city half as old as Time.”
-“half” –Magic precision

*Anglo-Saxon metaphor:
-Old kenning calling sea “the whale road”
-Hugeness of whale emphasizes hugeness of sea.

*Norse metaphor:
-Blood = “the water of the serpent”
-Sword implied as evil being, lapping up blood like water.

Page 10:

*Battle metaphors:
-“Meeting of men”
-“Meeting of swords”
-“Dance of swords”
-“The clash of armor”
-“The clash of shields”
-“A meeting of anger”
-Irish—“The web of men”—Depicts the crossing of weapons.

Page 11:

*Byron metaphor:
-“She walks in beauty, like the night.”
-A beautiful woman likened to the night.
-Must think of night as likened to woman.

*Though so many metaphors can be traced back to the same patterns, it is still possible to come up with metaphors that do not belong to the accepted patterns.