Abstract: In the last thirty years a great deal of sophisticated work has been done on the notion of metaphor: linguisticians, philosophers, scientists and archaeologists, amongst others, have all joined in the debate. At the centre of the discussion has been the 'location' of metaphor: is it a distortion of ordinary (= 'degree zero') language, or is it, on the contrary, at the very centre of linguistic usage? Far less attention, however, has been devoted to the closely related linguistic-rhetorical figure of the simile. In the recently published Encyclopedia of Rhetoric, for instance, the entry on 'simile' receives 30 lines, as against 258 for 'metaphor'. Yet there are certain forms of literature in which similes forge well ahead of metaphors as regards the insistence of their claims upon readers' attention. A prime example of such a form is Homeric epic.
Publication Year: 2004
Publication Date: 2004-10-14
Language: en
Type: book-chapter
Indexed In: ['crossref']
Access and Citation
Cited By Count: 94
AI Researcher Chatbot
Get quick answers to your questions about the article from our AI researcher chatbot