Metaphor

A Metaphor is a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is used in place of another to suggest a likeness or analogy between them. A metaphor is the opposite of a simile though both are used as comparisons. A simile will often contain the words like, as, as if, or as though. A metaphor does not.

Etymology

From Greek metaphoric - to transfer, meta- + pherein - to bear

Types

dead metaphors- a word or phrase that has lost its metaphoric strength by being used to often.

mixed metaphor- a figure of speech combining inconsistent or odd metaphors.

Example

The poem, The Bight by Elizabeth Bishop, quotes “Pelicans crash into this peculiar gas unnecessarily hard, it seems to me, like pickaxes, rarely coming up with anything to show for it, and going off with humorous elbowings”. Bishop paints the image of pelicans coming out of the water with the metaphor “humorous elbowings”. (Charters)

External Links

Metaphor Project. - contains methods for creating more vivid and effective new slogans, catch phrases, and metaphors

Works cited

Ann Charters and Samuel Charters. Literature and Its Writers: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. Boston: Bedford, 1997.

Connolly, Francis X. Poetry: Its Power And Wisdom. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1960.

Hawkes, Terence. Metaphor. London: Methuen & Co Ltd, 1972.

Perrine, Laurence. Literature Structure, Sound, and Sense. 4th ed. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1983.

Singleton, Ralph H. Style. California: Chandler Publishing Company, 1966.