Figuratively Speaking: Revised Edition / Edition 2

by Robert Fogelin

Overview

In this updated edition of his brief, engaging book, Robert J. Fogelin examines figures of speech that concern meaning--irony, hyperbole, understatement, similes, metaphors, and others--to show how they work and to explain their attraction. Building on the ideas of Grice and Tversky, Fogelin contends that figurative language derives its power from its insistence that the reader participate in the text, looking beyond the literal meaning of the figurative language to the meanings that are implied. With examples ranging from Shakespeare, John Donne, and Jane Austen to e.e. cummings, Bessie Smith, and Monty Python, Fogelin demonstrates that the intellectual and aesthetic force of figurative language is derived from the opportunity it provides for unlimited elaboration.

Fogelin presents a modern restatement of the view, first put forward by Aristotle, that metaphors are to be treated as elliptical similes. He then offers a detailed defense of this "comparativist" view of metaphors in response to criticisms that have been brought against it by a series of eminent philosophers. This new edition is updated to reflect more recent work on the topic and will interest philosophers, linguists, and literary theorists.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199739998
Publisher:	Oxford University Press, USA
Publication date:	02/24/2011
Edition description:	Revised
Pages:	144
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Robert J. Fogelin is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at Dartmouth College. He is the author of Hume's Skeptical Crisis.

Table of Contents

Preface to the First Edition
Preface to the Revised Edition
1. Introduction
2. Figurative Predications
3. Figurative Comparisons: The Traditional View
4. The Standard Criticisms of Comparativism
5. A Dilemma for Theories of Metaphor
6. A Theory of Figurative Comparisons
7. Clarifications and Elaborations
A Concluding Note
Works Cited
Index