Carried away by metaphors

We are moved by metaphors, carried away, transported by them. In its simplest form, metaphor sets side by side two things that are different and purposes to the mind that they are alike. Metaphor does not change things, it asks us to consider them in the light they shine on one another. Everything looks different  depending on the light in which we see it. The right metaphor educates and delights our sense of seeing."

Heather Cass White, Books Promiscuously Read

Metaphors have been on my mind lately. I am leading a series of discussions on the 23rd Psalm. The psalms are poetry, and poetry depends heavily on metaphors. "The Lord is my shepherd," like virtually every phrase in the psalm, is a metaphor. It "sets side by side two things that are different" — God and a shepherd — "and purposes to the mind that they are alike."

Heather Cass White

The metaphors in the psalm ask us "to consider them in the light they shine on one another." Metaphors can mean different things to different people, or even to the same person at different times. That's because, as Heather Cass White puts it, "Everything looks different depending on the light in which we see it."

Thus, I think our discussions on the 23rd Psalm could be very interesting.

But if poetry depends heavily on metaphors, the same is true of fiction. Moby-Dick is a great novel, in part, because the huge whale is a great metaphor. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a great novel, in part, because the raft and the river are great metaphors. The effective use of metaphors is essential to good writing.

But then metaphors are also essential to communication in general. The Big Bang metaphor makes it easier to explain the universe. Two apples plus two apples makes it easier to explain basic arithmetic.

As White puts it, "The right metaphor educates and delights our sense of seeing."