Is all poetic metaphor deliberate?
Exploring the relationship between verbal creativity and
deliberateness
Anna Piata | Swiss Center for Affective Sciences & University of Neuchâtel
The present study focuses on poetic metaphor with the aim to explore the
relationship between verbal creativity and deliberateness. It has been suggested
that novel metaphors are typically deliberate, although this does not mean that
all conventional metaphor is necessarily non-deliberate (Steen, 2010). In this study, I examine metaphors of time
that appear in poetic texts and are linguistically and conceptually conventional,
showing that they can nevertheless be used deliberately via the linguistic and
textual context(s) in which they are embedded. They are thus endowed with new,
enriched contextual meanings, thereby inviting readers to revise their existing
conceptualisations. I finally conclude that deliberateness can serve as an
overarching framework for identifying poetic metaphor and distinguishing it from
metaphor in poetry.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Deliberate vs. non-deliberate metaphor
- 3.Poetic metaphor, verbal creativity and deliberateness
- 4.What is poetic metaphor?
- 5.Concluding remarks
-
Notes
-
References
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