Similes and metaphors
Similes and metaphors are essential figures of speech used to create vivid imagery and convey complex ideas through simple comparisons. A simile explicitly states a similarity between two objects using "like" or "as," while a metaphor asserts that one object is another, allowing for a more forceful expression. Both literary devices function beyond mere rhetoric, influencing thought in various fields such as music, art, and daily communication. Historically, similes and metaphors have deep roots in literature, with notable examples found in the works of Homer and Shakespeare, illustrating their enduring relevance across cultures.
These tropes enable individuals to make connections between seemingly unrelated concepts, enriching our understanding of the world. For instance, Carl Sandburg’s simile "Life is like an onion" leads into a metaphor about the layers of life and the emotions involved. Moreover, similes and metaphors can reflect changes in language and perception over time, as seen in the evolution of phrases that lose their original imagery. Ultimately, these figures of speech are not only stylistic tools but also powerful cognitive devices that shape our interpretations and interactions with life’s complexities.
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Subject Terms
Similes and metaphors
Similes and metaphors are figures of speech. A simile states similarity that illustrates how one object is like another. A metaphor, more forceful than a simile, asserts that one object is identical to another. Similes and metaphors are tropes (a type of literary device that employs words in ways other than in their literal sense), and both have uses outside of rhetoric. Simile can be a form of irony or sarcasm, where what the speaker literally says is opposite to what is meant. Similes and metaphors are idioms that describe a subject by asserting it is comparable to another otherwise unrelated object, achieving their meaning through association.
Background
William Shakespeare (1564–1616) wrote, “Similes are like songs in love; they much describe, they nothing prove.” Some linguists believe that language by its very nature is essentially metaphorical. Ancient Greek traditions were derived from geographically and culturally diverse populations holding the sensibility that humanism ultimately placed humanity at the center of all ideology. Homer, an eighth-century BCE author of epic Greek poetry, developed the formulaic simile that could run several lines and be used to intensify the heroic stature of the subject. Homeric similes feature several categories of motifs where the object was interchangeable; one example common of a Homeric simile is a statement that concludes with “like a lion.” These simple paratactic additions to narratives illustrate how Greeks and other ancients developed parallels between two images where each scene elucidated and interpreted the other, and then those images were expressed in poetic language that defined ordinary life contextually within broader narratives. Homer’s lion simile, used in both the Iliad and the Odyssey, found its way into the collective consciousness so that it became a commonly used comparison even in regions with no lions physically present.
In order to understand metaphor, one must consider humanism; when one reads ancient mythology, one is actually reading the earliest chronicled metaphors. The various deities, with their meddling in human affairs, represented the forces that influenced these ancient humans’ lives, including environmental elements, such as seasons and weather, and emotions, such as love. Socrates and Plato introduced rationalism that evolved slowly, and even Plato describes how the gods instructed him to do certain things and gives descriptions couched in metaphor. Subsequently, in the New Testament, Jesus couches complex ideas in metaphoric parables.
During the Renaissance, humanism was reasserted; however, the Protestant Reformation brought about profound changes in social, political, and artistic conversations in Europe. During this era, Shakespeare created one of the most recognizable metaphors in a monologue from his 1603 play As You Like It: “All the world’s a stage; And all the men and women merely players” (2.6.7).
Impact
A metaphor consists of two parts: the figure and the source. The figure is the topic to which attributes are ascribed, and the source is object from which attributes are borrowed. The source acts as a springboard for the onset of the figural situation. A metaphor simultaneously establishes the hierarchy in which the topic is either reversed or neutralized, and it can come in the form of an allegory, catachresis, parable, or pun. With Carl Sandburg’s simile “Life is like an onion,” he follows with a metaphorical hierarchy characterized by descriptive universality: “you peel it off one layer at a time, and sometimes you weep.”
Similes and metaphors require cognitive skills; they offer innovative comparison and are pervasive throughout everyday life in thought and action that convey personal meaning. Beyond being stylistic, similes and metaphors are not restricted only to rhetorical use, but can also reflect connections between multiple nonlinguistic realms such as music, art, and history. As figures of speech used to convey complex ideas in deceptively simple ways, they provide their audience something concrete to connect to more complex ideas, even if those ideas are initially unfamiliar. Metaphors and similes reflect hierarchical logic; those who study rhetoric (the art of persuasive speaking and writing) employ figures of speech in order to produce creative and persuasive writing and develop successful story narratives.
In historical linguistics, simile and metaphor reveal semantic change based upon similarity. A dead metaphor is one that has lost its original imagery or semantics due to overuse. Once a metaphor has a conventional meaning that differs from the original, it can be interpreted without knowing the metaphor’s earlier connotation. For example, most people no longer think of the phrase “falling in love” as a metaphor; they do not picture someone literally falling when they hear it and may not associate any of the qualities of falling with the act of falling in love.
Similes and metaphors can shape how one views the world, as, for instance, in the axiom “time is money.” These figures of speech are so common in living language that they are often taken for granted, yet they offer treasure troves of meaning that reveal nuances of thinking in its simplest form and can endure throughout time.
Bibliography
Aristotle. Poetics. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1995. Print.
Geary, James. I Is an Other: The Secret Life of Metaphor and How It Shapes How We See the World. New York: Harper, 2011. Print.
Grant, James. The Critical Imagination. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2013. Print.
Levin, Samuel R. The Semantics of Metaphor. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1977. Print.
Punter, David. Metaphor. London: Routledge, 2007. Print.
Raffel, Stanley. The Method of Metaphor. Chicago: Intellect, 2013. Print.
Sayce, Olive. Exemplary Comparison from Homer to Petrarch. Cambridge: Brewer, 2008. Print.
Scott, William C. The Artistry of the Homeric Simile. Hanover: UP of New England, 2009. Print.
Underfill, James W. Creating Worldviews: Metaphor, Ideology, and Language. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2011. Print.
Von Glinski, Maria Louisa. Simile and Identity in Ovid’s Metamorphosis. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2012. Print.