The Ontology of Metaphor: With Examples from John Donne, William Wordsworth, and Wallace Stevens

• Main Authors: Wei-Han Chen, 陳韋翰
• Other Authors: Duncan McColl Chesney
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2013
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/91586775470400110662

碩士 === 國立臺灣大學 === 外國語文學研究所 === 101 === This thesis attempts to explore the ontological potential and epistemological status of metaphor by probing into several theories of metaphor and reading some poems of John Donne, William Wordsworth, and Wallace Stevens. The thesis is mainly based on I. A. Richards’ and Max Black’s interaction theory of metaphor, which asserts that metaphor is the unifying interaction between tenor and vehicle, and on Paul Ricoeur’s semantic theory that integrates Kant’s schematic theory in order to illustrate metaphor’s world-constructing ability. The thesis discusses three generic exceptions to the interaction theory—the distanciation between tenor and vehicle in Donne, the non-impertinent metaphors and the reversibility between tenor and vehicle in Wordsworth—as a way to engage with the theory. On the other hand, the discussions on Stevens mainly serve the interaction theory, trying to provide an effective account and examples for the concept of interaction. The thesis examines in the chapter on Donne the distanciation between tenor and vehicle, the relation between metaphor and absence, and the phenomenon of “cumulative metaphor” through which a series of metaphors becomes a “real” presence. On the other hand, the chapter on Wordsworth discusses the union between tenor and vehicle into one single word, the relation between metaphor and symbol, the metaphor’s resistance to Aufhebung, and the metaphor’s status as a border being. The chapter on Stevens surveys his binary motive for metaphor—to undo outworn metaphors for a world uncreated and to weave a new supreme fiction with fresh metaphors. The chapter also examines the connection between Stevens’ notion of decreation, metonymy, and an anti-metaphor tendency in Stevens, as well as the transition from the metonymic world of decreation to the metaphorical world of revelation in his poetry.