Metaphor and the Ancient Novel (original) (raw)
Neither the use of the term metaphora in Latin texts nor the concept of metaphor in Roman linguistic thought has been sufficiently investigated. Roman approaches to metaphor can be characterized as eclectic, based on the Aristotelian and Peripatetic traditions, while also including Rhodian influences. 1 From Quintilian on, the term metaphora is established in Latin linguistic thought and used regularly by Roman grammarians such as Marcus Cornelius Fronto, Pomponius Porphyrio, Aelius Donatus, Maurus Servius Honoratis. This paper's aims are however more limited: to examine the first uses and discussions of metaphor in texts where linguistic issues were debated. The first of these that has survived is a Latin handbook on rhetoric, the ad Herennium. Cicero and the Augustan grammarian Verrius Flaccus (to the extent that his relevant considerations on metaphor have been transmitted in the Lexicon of Festus) will also be examined. In order to follow the use of a linguistic term in Latin, Greek texts need to be taken into account. Grammarians and rhetoricians worked in a bilingual cultural context, and from the very beginning reciprocal influences are both expected and observed. Latin texts were in fact to a considerable extent translations from Greek grammatical and rhetorical handbooks.
The typology of linguistic metaphor in first-century CE Roman thought
Lemmata Linguistica Latina, Volume I, Words and Sounds, ed. by Holmes, N. / Ottink, M. / Schrickx, J. / Selig, M., 2019
This chapter, belonging to the field of the history of Roman linguistics , builds on my previous analysis of the theoretical linguistic treatment of metaphor in Roman thought from first century BCE to first century CE. It argues that metaphor from the very beginnings has been analysed not only within rhetoric but also within both linguistic and philosophical domains. Aristotelian cognitive approaches are significant for understanding Quintilian's treatment of metaphor, which Quintilian develops along semantic and pragmatic lines. Seneca's approach to metaphor contributes towards an understanding of the intellectual context of Quintilian's first-century CE Rome. The iconicity of metaphor and metaphorical mapping developed in Seneca's semiotic use of 'mental pictures' in their interplay with metaphor constituted a particularly important contribution to theoretical debates on metaphor.
Brill’s Companion to the Reception of Ancient Rhetoric, 2021
This chapter discusses the place of metaphor in ancient and modern political rhetoric. It starts with the idea of metaphor in classical rhetorical and stylistic theories and juxtaposes it with modern cognitive theories, to note that the differences between Greek theorists’ and modern linguists’ views have often been misconstrued and overemphasised. It argues that the cognitive aspect of metaphor, well represented in Greek theorising, was sidelined in Roman and later tradition. It also analyses examples of some prominent types of metaphors in classical Athenian and recent rhetorical practice, including Cold War rhetoric, and discusses their real-life impact (including metaphors of states as structures and containers, personifications and body politic, and war as a sporting competition).
Isonomia - Epistemologica, 2017
The aim of this paper is to propose a historiographical reconstruction of the history of metaphor, by analyzing texts from Presocratic literature. In Parmenides and Empedocles, although the opposite approach, metaphor is used to explain the core of their philosophies. Anyway using metaphor does not allow them to elaborate a theory of metaphor. Not even Isocrates specifies what a metaphor means, but he defines it as a figure of speech. A relevant author for a history of metaphor in Presocratic philosophy is Antiphon, who knew metaphor as a figure. Finally, the most important Sophist Gorgias creatively invented and used many rhetorical figures including metaphor, maybe in a more original way than Plato. Effectively, Aristotle will use Sophists’ results: the Sophistic Movement played a fundamental role for the birth of metaphors in the fifth century.
Meaning-Making and World-Creative Power of Metaphor: Paul Ricoeur, Aristotle, and Plato
Cosmos and History: The Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy, 2024
In this paper, I offer a comparative study of Paul Ricoeur's analyses of metaphor and the role of the khōra in Plato's Timaeus. My goal is twofold. First, I show that both metaphors and the khōra play a role in the structuration of the world and the possibility of its knowability. This role is much more significant than a merely ornamental or residual or subsidiary function. Second, I argue for a reading of Ricoeur and of Plato on which Ricoeur's metaphorical process and the work of the khōra are closely aligned. The result is that I both offer a new view of the khōra and also explain how and why, on my view, the khōra already contains structural elements of the metaphorical process that Ricoeur works out.
Drawing Attention to Metaphor: Introduction (2020)
Drawing Attention to Metaphor, 2020
This volume is the product of a conference, The premeditated path. Deliberate metaphor in ancient and modern texts, that was held in Berlin in July 2016 under the auspices of the Excellence Cluster 264 ‘Topoi: The Formation and Transformation of Space and Knowledge in Ancient Civilizations’. The impetus for the conference and its subsequent publication was twofold: firstly to attempt to engage with the different sides of the debate about “deliberateness” or “marking” in metaphor usage and secondly to see whether texts from the ancient world could offer some new perspectives on the signalling of metaphorical language.
Images and cognitive metaphor in 1st c. CE Roman discourse
Linguisticae Dissertationes. Current Perspectives on Latin Grammar, Lexicon and Pragmatics, 2021
This paper argues that ‘metaphorical mapping’ and the ‘iconicity’ of metaphor, not sufficiently analysed in Roman discourse up until now, open new perspectives for the evaluation of Roman treatment of cognitive metaphor. Greek and Latin 1st century CE theoretical passages on mental visuality and (conceptual) metaphor are analysed revealing the attention Roman intellectuals accorded to communicational process and to the interaction of language (speaking) and cognition (meaning). Greek parallels are of particular importance. They provide missing links allowing for a fuller interpretation of the usage and meaning of certain key terms and ideas. This paper argues that 1st century CE Roman authors were well aware of structural analogies and interaction between the cognitive, the imaginative, and the emotional components of metaphor (with all the caveats of the anachronistic use of these terms). Further the imagines they have in mind when discussing the cognitive act corresponds to ‘conceptual metaphors’ in modern theories.