Subject
Re: Fwd: Re: Nabokov's imagery/'tropes'
From
Date
Body
Dear Brian Howell
My name has disappeared from the posting about "tropes": Jansy Mello.
I will dare write down a little about tropes, since I´ve always enjoyed
Terence Hawkes book " Metaphor" ( Thre Critical Idiom, Ed.Methuen & Co.
Ltd.) as well as Borges´s theories.
"Language which means what it says (...) is literal. Figurative language
deliberately interferes with the system of literal usage by its assumption
that terms literally connected with one object can be transferred to another
object (...)" . Tropes or figures of speech are
"turnings" of language away from literal meanings and towards figurative
meanings. Metaphor is generally considered to manifest the basic pattern of
transference involved and so can be thought as the fundamental 'figure' of
speech. The other figures tend to be versions of metaphor´s prototype,
particularly the three manin tradicional categories:
(a) simile: " this piece of steel convers the car´s engine as if it were a
bonnet covering a woman´s head" ; ' I saw the ruddy moon lean over a
hedge/Like a red-faced farmer" ; "The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the
window-panes"; " Voici le soir charmant, ami du criminel/ il vient comme un
complice, à pas de loup" ; " the holy time is quiet as a Nun".
(b) synedoche: "twenty summers" for twenty years; "ten hands" for "ten men",
"blind mouths" for "corrupt priests"
(c) metonimy: "The White House" for the President of the US, "The Crown" for
the Monarch. Old English "kenning" are a form of metonimy.
And Hawkes adds: " something in the mind withers at the propsect of
unfolding the mysteries of Antonomasia, Hyperbaton, Metalepsis and the rest,
and in ant case these categories were designed principally as standard
formulae to help with composition, not critical response..."
And I´ll dare a little longer. I think that VN´s complaint about James
Joyce´s being " too verbal" is linked to this definition of tropes as the
"dreams of speech" ( by the way, this is quite a psychoanalytic way of
considering them!) .
It seems that for VN Joyce never allowed speech to dream .
Jansy Mello.
--- Original Message -----
From: "Donald B. Johnson" <chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu>
To: <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
Sent: Thursday, September 02, 2004 12:02 PM
Subject: Re: Fwd: Re: Nabokov's imagery/'tropes'
> I'm not sure who posted the message with the 'tropes', quote but it was
> fascinating. Now I have a question:
>
> Can someone give me a decent definition of 'trope', and possibly an
> example, because it's a word I've never been comfortable with no matter
> how often I look it up.
>
> Brian Howell
>
> ----- End forwarded message -----
>
>
----- End forwarded message -----
My name has disappeared from the posting about "tropes": Jansy Mello.
I will dare write down a little about tropes, since I´ve always enjoyed
Terence Hawkes book " Metaphor" ( Thre Critical Idiom, Ed.Methuen & Co.
Ltd.) as well as Borges´s theories.
"Language which means what it says (...) is literal. Figurative language
deliberately interferes with the system of literal usage by its assumption
that terms literally connected with one object can be transferred to another
object (...)" . Tropes or figures of speech are
"turnings" of language away from literal meanings and towards figurative
meanings. Metaphor is generally considered to manifest the basic pattern of
transference involved and so can be thought as the fundamental 'figure' of
speech. The other figures tend to be versions of metaphor´s prototype,
particularly the three manin tradicional categories:
(a) simile: " this piece of steel convers the car´s engine as if it were a
bonnet covering a woman´s head" ; ' I saw the ruddy moon lean over a
hedge/Like a red-faced farmer" ; "The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the
window-panes"; " Voici le soir charmant, ami du criminel/ il vient comme un
complice, à pas de loup" ; " the holy time is quiet as a Nun".
(b) synedoche: "twenty summers" for twenty years; "ten hands" for "ten men",
"blind mouths" for "corrupt priests"
(c) metonimy: "The White House" for the President of the US, "The Crown" for
the Monarch. Old English "kenning" are a form of metonimy.
And Hawkes adds: " something in the mind withers at the propsect of
unfolding the mysteries of Antonomasia, Hyperbaton, Metalepsis and the rest,
and in ant case these categories were designed principally as standard
formulae to help with composition, not critical response..."
And I´ll dare a little longer. I think that VN´s complaint about James
Joyce´s being " too verbal" is linked to this definition of tropes as the
"dreams of speech" ( by the way, this is quite a psychoanalytic way of
considering them!) .
It seems that for VN Joyce never allowed speech to dream .
Jansy Mello.
--- Original Message -----
From: "Donald B. Johnson" <chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu>
To: <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
Sent: Thursday, September 02, 2004 12:02 PM
Subject: Re: Fwd: Re: Nabokov's imagery/'tropes'
> I'm not sure who posted the message with the 'tropes', quote but it was
> fascinating. Now I have a question:
>
> Can someone give me a decent definition of 'trope', and possibly an
> example, because it's a word I've never been comfortable with no matter
> how often I look it up.
>
> Brian Howell
>
> ----- End forwarded message -----
>
>
----- End forwarded message -----