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TRACT No. XI
By E.B., H.W. Fowler & A. Clutton-Brock
MISCELLANEOUS NOTES & CORRESPONDENCE
At the Clarendon Press
1922
The business of the writer is to arouse in the mind of his reader thefullest possible consciousness of the ideas or emotion that he isexpressing.
To this end he suggests a comparison between it and something elsewhich is similar to it in respect of those qualities to which hedesires to draw attention. The reader's mind at once gets to workunconsciously on this comparison, rejecting the unlike qualities andrecognizing with an enhanced and satisfied consciousness the likeones. The functions of simile and metaphor are the same in thisrespect.
Both simile and metaphor are best when not too close to the idea theyexpress, that is, when they have not many qualities in common with itwhich are not cogent to the aspect under consideration.
The test of a well-used metaphor is that it should completely fulfilthis function: there should be no by-products of imagery whichdistract from the poet's aim, and vitiate and weaken the desiredconsciousness.
A simile, in general, need not be so close as a metaphor, because thepoint of resemblance is indicated, whereas in a metaphor this is leftto the reader to discover.
When a simile or metaphor is from the material to the immaterial, orvice versa, the analogy should be more complete than when it isbetween two things on the same plane: when they are on differentplanes there is less dullness (that is, less failure to produceconsciousness), and the greater mental effort required of the readerwarrants some assistance.
The degree of effort required in applying any given metaphor should bein relation to the degree of emotion proper to the passage in which itis used. Only those metaphors which require little or no mentalexertion should be used in very emotional passages, or the emotionaleffect will be much weakened: a far-fetched, abstruse metaphor orsimile implies that the writer is at leisure from his emotion, andsuggests this attitude in the reader.—[E.B.]
Live and dead metaphor; some pitfalls; self-consciousness and mixedmetaphor.
1. Live and Dead Metaphor.
In all discussion of metaphor it must be borne in mind that somemetaphors are living, i.e. are offered and accepted with aconsciousness of their nature as substitutes for their literalequivalents, while others are dead, i.e. have been so often used thatspeaker and hearer have ceased to be aware that the words are notliteral: but the line of distinction between the live and the dead isa shifting one, the dead being sometimes liable, under the stimulus ofan affinity or a repulsion, to galvanic stirrings indistinguishablefrom life. Thus, in The men were sifting meal we have a literal useof sift; in Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you aswheat, 'sift' is a liv