Kognitiivinen metafora runoanalyysin selkärankana?

Dylan Thomasin ”After the Funeral” -runon ruumiilliset kielikuvat ja koherenttiuden haaste

• Anne Päivärinta Tampereen yliopisto

DOI: https://doi.org/10.30665/av.74817

Abstract

Cognitive Metaphor as an Analytical Tool? The Embodied Imagery of Dylan Thomas’s “After the Funeral” and the Challenge of Metaphoric Coherence

The article aims at drawing interpretive value from the theory of cognitive metaphor by bringing it together with a challenging test case, Dylan Thomas’s poem “After the funeral” (1939). Since the publication of Lakoff and Turner’s influential Metaphors We Live By (1980), there has been a lot of discussion about the groundbreaking idea of metaphor as a way of thinking, as well as about the problems in the model. Lakoff and Johnson have been criticised for producing reductive readings of literary texts and for having a limited conception of metaphor as a trope. The article claims that as a result, the model has been overlooked as a possible tool for poetry analysis. While acknowledging the limitations of the model, the article employs the idea of metaphoric mapping in describing how a complex metaphor works. Furthermore, the article argues that this mapping process can account for more than just individual expressions: the blends formed in interpreting metaphors can influence one another and thus form a network of metaphors. The reader accommodates deviant figurative expressions to their knowledge of conventional metaphors but also to the context of the whole poem, thus striving for metaphoric coherence. This process requires literary competence, which is something the cognitive theory of metaphor does not really take into consideration. The article then argues that certain additions and adjustments need to be made in order to develop the theory as an analytical resource.