Podcasts about metonymy

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Best podcasts about metonymy

Latest podcast episodes about metonymy

Books with Betsy
Episode 34 - Best of 2024 Part 1

Books with Betsy

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 30, 2024 94:01


On this episode, past guests of Books with Betsy and I share our favorite books of 2024! Listen to hear about lots of great 2024 books and the excellent backlist we got to this year.    Books mentioned in this episode:    Betsy's Best Categorically (books that…):  Shocked me:  How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix  None of This is True by Lisa Jewell  The Night House by Jo Nesbø Nightwatching by Tracy Sierra  Made me Cry: North Woods by Daniel Mason  The Bee Sting by Paul Murray  Underrated: God Bless You, Otis Spunkmeyer by Joseph Earl Thomas  Witness by Jamel Brinkley  Victim by Andrew Boryga  Fire Exit by Morgan Talty  Recommend Widely: Erasure by Percival Everett  Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar  Hard to Recommend:  Yr Dead by Sam Sax  Sisters of the Lost Nation by Nick Medina  Made me Think About my Life Differently: When Crack Was King: A People's History of a Misunderstood Era by Donovan X. Ramsey Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman    Books Highlighted by Guests: Mawuli Grant Agbefe:  Opposable Thumbs: How Siskel and Ebert Changed Movies Forever by Matt Singer  Having and Being Had by Eula Bliss  Your Face Belongs to Us: A Tale of AI, a Secretive Startup, and the End of Privacy by Kashmir Hill Mean Girl Feminism: How White Feminists Gaslight, Gatekeep, and Girlboss by Kim Hong Nguyen We Refuse: A Forceful History of Black Resistance by Kellie Carter Jackson Mapping the Stars: Celebrity, Metonymy and the Networked Politics of Identity by Claire Sisco King Sam Wilmes:  Such Kindness by Andre Dubus III  We Spread by Iain Read We Used to Live Here by Marcus Kliewer  My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell   The Haunting of Alejandra by V. Castro Amie Medley:  Crossroads by Jonathan Franzen  Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan  Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel  North Woods by Daniel Mason  The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolaño Tanima Kazi:  The Lantern of Lost Memories by Sanaka Hiiragi  One Dark Window by Rachel Gillig  Two Twisted Crowns by Rachel Gillig  Home is Where the Bodies Are by Jeneva Rose  The Perfect Marriage by Jeneva Rose  Stacy Jezerowski:  We Solve Murders by Richard Osman  Beautiful Villain by Rebecca Kenney Sarah Sabet:  Klara & The Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro  Atonement by Ian McEwan  Men Have Called Her Crazy by Anna Marie Tendler The Housemaid by Frieda McFadden  The Wife Between Us by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen Anna Deem:  The Nix by Nathan Hill  Rebel Girl: My Life as a Feminist Punk by Kathleen Hanna Cat Shieh:  Give Me Space But Don't Go Far: My Unlikely Friendship with Anxiety by Haley Weaver Bullshit Jobs: A Theory by David Graeber  Just Us: An American Conversation by Claudia Rankine The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates  I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki by Baek Sehee  Mo Smith:  The Truth About Melody Browne by Lisa Jewell The Lightning Bottles by Marissa Stapley  The Third Gilmore Girl by Kelly Bishop All The Colors of the Dark by Chris Whitaker  Is She Really Going Out With Him? by Sophie Cousens Leah @Dishingonbooks:  Nuclear War: A Scenario by Annie Jacobsen  Grief is For People by Sloane Crosley Clean by Alia Trabucco Zerán  James by Percival Everett  A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole  Emily McClanathan:  Babel by R.F. Kuang  Relinquished: The Politics of Adoption and the Privilege of American Motherhood by Gretchen Sisson  Mean Spirit by Linda Hogan  A Well-Trained Wife: My Escape from Christian Patriarchy by Tia Levings

The Whorrors!
#127: The Wicker Man (1973 & 2006)

The Whorrors!

Play Episode Listen Later May 29, 2024 66:03


We're covering two movies with “man” in the title, but DON'T BE FRIGHTENED - there's lots of ladies committing trickery in the folk horror flick, The Wicker Man (1973 & 2006). ***CONTENT WARNING: discussion of sexual assault, spoilers for Midsommar Follow us on Instagram at @thewhorrorspodcast Email us at thewhorrorspodcast@gmail.com Artwork by Gabrielle Fatula (gabrielle@gabriellefatula.com) Music: Epic Industrial Music Trailer by SeverMusicProd Standard Music License  Sources:  Campbell, Dr. Danny. “Weekly Sermons: The Unholy Trinity.” The Tabernacle Family. The Tabernacle, 2022. https://www.thetabernaclefamily.org/tabernacle-sermons/weekly-sermons/sermon/650-the-unholy-trinity. Accessed December 2022. Web.  Chambers, Jamie. "Troubling Folk Horror: Exoticism, Metonymy, and Solipsism in the "Unholy Trinity" and Beyond." JCMS: Journal of Cinema and Media Studies, vol. 61 no. 2, 2022, p. 9-34. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/cj.2022.0014. Accessed December 2022. “Constructing The Wicker Man: Film and Cultural Studies Perspectives.”Offscreen.com. https://offscreen.com/view/wicker_man#:~:text=Ashurst's%20essay%20demonstrates%20how%20The,the%20usual%20male%2Ddriven%20narrative. Poole, W. Scott. “Monstrous Beginnings.” Monsters in America: Our Historical Obsessions with the Hideous and the Haunting. 2nd edition. Waco, Texas: Baylor University Press, 2018. Print. The Wicker Man (1973) Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wicker_Man  The Wicker Man (1973) IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070917/  The Wicker Man (2006) Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wicker_Man_(2006_film)  The Wicker Man (2006) IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0450345/ 

Sley House Presents
Episode 58: Craft -- Figurative Language

Sley House Presents

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 17, 2022 59:36


In this final episode on our initial series on craft, Jeremy and Trevor give a thorough overview of the elements of figurative language, and how it can be used in writing. Below you'll find the terms they reference in this episode and the definitions for those terms. While this series hasn't meant to be an exhaustive look at studying the craft of fiction, the hope is that it gives a nice overview of for students and writers and gives a solid vocabulary for those interested in improving or learning more about their craft. DictionSyntaxPhonologyGraphologyLinguistic DeviationDiscoursal DeviationSemantic DeviationLexical Deviation Grammatical DeviationMorphological DeviationPhonological Deviation           Aphesis:           Syncope:            Apocope: Graphological DeviationDialectal DeviationConnotative LanguageDenotative LanguageMetaphor: ClichéPersonificationDepersonificationSimileSynecdocheMetonymyExtended MetaphorSymbolismHyperboleAlliterationThe Reference Codewww.sleyhouse.compatreon.com/sleyhousepublishinghttps://www.instagram.com/waynehowardmedia/https://www.instagram.com/waynehowardstudios/ Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/sley-house-publishing-presents-litbits. https://plus.acast.com/s/sley-house-publishing-presents-litbits. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Columbus Baptist Church's Podcast
06 James 1:16-18 - I've Got This - God

Columbus Baptist Church's Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 20, 2022 47:38


Title: “I've Got This!” - God Text: James 1:16-18 FCF: We often struggle holding fast the tension that God is both good and Sovereign when we are tested. Prop: Because God is absolutely good and absolutely sovereign, we must not deny this when tested. Scripture Intro: [Slide 1] Turn in your bible to James chapter 1. Last week we continued a topic that James opened up in verse 9. As a response to God using trials to perfect us, James has begun addressing areas that we might be lacking. Areas of our life that God might be working to perfect us. Or even areas in our life that are keeping us from considering our tests pure joy. He began with wisdom, and stated there that God gives good gifts to His children and they need only to ask and they will receive it. Then he moved to perspective. He taught that if we don't seek the kingdom first and instead focus on what we have or don't have in this life – then we might miss the joy in financial trial. Then he moved to last week where even in testings that have us grappling with temptation, we ought not think God is tempting us but rather that we are being tempted by our own desires. It is our fault, not God's, when we are led away and enticed. If we get this wrong, then it will be impossible to count testings that include temptation as pure joy. Today we will look at what is a sister point of last week's message. There is just a LOT for us to cover here – mainly because I will have to defend a doctrine and teaching that may be a bit difficult for some of you to swallow. So let's turn to James 1. I'll begin reading in verse 16 from the NASB. You can follow along in the pew bible on page 1360 or in whatever version you have in front of you. Transition: This sermon is on the longer side. But if we are intently listening, I know it will be a blessing to your hearts. It will allow us all to conclude that even temptation can be used by our God to grow us into what He would have us to be. And in the midst of trial where we are tempted – that is truly a comforting thought. But to get there – we have to get what James says right. So let's endeavor to do just that. I.) God is the only unchanging source of good giving and perfect gifts, so we must not deny this when tested. a. [Slide 2] 16 – Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. i. James again begins with a negative command. ii. It is possible that this command connects with the previous thought. That we ought not be deceived about how temptation comes to us. iii. In fact, I think the command does exactly that. iv. But it also reaches forward to what he will say. v. This command is regarding the nature of God and the nature of man. vi. Both man and God are compared to each other in this text. And God is very clearly one way while all His creation is quite another. vii. This passage speaks to the “otherness” or “uniqueness” of God. Or as we call it in theology – His Holiness. viii. As we are comparing God to His creation, James' desire is that we are not deceived. ix. This is the essence of all heresy, false teaching, and even heterodoxy. x. From where do these come if not from being led astray by a false view of the nature of God. xi. And if we cannot understand, at least what God has revealed about Himself, then we will form a deceived misunderstanding of who we are as humans. xii. If we are led astray on who God is and who we are, we cannot possibly form right understandings or conclusions about anything – much less about our trials, the future kingdom, or even salvation. xiii. Although this is a negative command, to put it positively James commands his audience to give heed to sound doctrine. To hold fast to what they have been taught. To not be lazy in your pursuit of doctrine. xiv. For we must possess a childlike faith – this is true… but not a childish faith. xv. Meaning we must receive what God says with humble belief, but we must also not remain purposefully shallow in our understanding, lest we be swept away with every wind of doctrine. b. [Slide 3] 17 – Every good thing given and every perfect gift i. Now James wishes to give his audience some proper teaching on the nature of God. ii. The opening item is actually focusing on the giving itself. Every giving of good things. iii. James has been discussing how God is not evil. And we spoke last week about how God is good. It is an attribute of His. Meaning of course, that He defines what the word good actually means. iv. But not just in every instance of giving but even the gifts themselves. v. Every perfect or complete gift. The last time we saw this word “perfect” was in verse 4 when James said that the endurance of our faith when it has its “perfect” work, will “perfect” us. vi. So, every gift that comes to us that is perfect and every giving of godly good gifts comes from where? c. [Slide 4] Is from above, i. This is metonymy. Metonymy is a figure of speech whereby we use something that is related in name or concept to what we mean. ii. When we say the white house gave a statement today – we don't mean that the building gave a statement. iii. And here, when James says that every giving of godly good things and every perfect gift comes from above… he very obviously doesn't mean the sky, or space, or the universe, or heaven, or angels. iv. He means from God. Only God can give perfect gifts. Only God is the one who gives godly good things. v. And just in case that wasn't clear, James continues… d. [Slide 5] Coming down from the Father of lights i. We've talked a bit about cosmology. In ancient cosmology the throne of heaven is above the firmament. And under the firmament is where God hung the sun, moon, and stars. Which would include the other planets in our solar system. ii. Now we know that these are actually beyond our atmosphere – but they didn't know what an atmosphere was back then. All they knew is they looked up and saw lights suspended in the heavens. iii. Those are the lights that James is speaking of here. iv. Where do perfect gifts come from? Who gives godly good things? v. The wonders that we can behold with our eyes yet cannot reach – He made them. e. [Slide 6] With whom there is no variation or shifting shadow. i. Unlike the hanging lights though – there is no shifting shadow with Him. ii. Unlike us, there is no variation or hint of change with God. iii. If God is the only giver of godly good things and no other source ever gives perfect gifts… iv. But God was like the sun whose light could be covered by a passing cloud. If God was like the moon that hides its full glory during most nights of the month. v. if God was like us… like fickle humans who are hot one minute and cold the next. Full one minute and hungry the next. Asleep one minute and awake the next. Refreshed then tired. Strong then weak. Happy then sad. Satisfied then unsatisfied. Kind then mean. Comfortable then uncomfortable. vi. Can you imagine… if God was the only giver of godly good things and perfect gifts… but he was like us? vii. If God was the only source for gifts like grace, hope, love, faith, repentance, regeneration, adoption, justification, glorification, propitiation, expiation… viii. But the next day he would take them away. When we sin He would remove them. What hell we would live in. ix. But my friends… God never changes. He is the same yesterday, today and forever. x. Not only is He the only source for giving good things and perfect gifts, but He is the CONSTANT source for giving good things and perfect gifts. f. [Slide 7] Passage Truth: James teaches us here that our God, our Father, is the unchanging source of all blessings and goodness and every perfect gift that comes down to His dear children. g. Passage Application: Therefore, they must not be deceived to believe that He is guilty of doing any evil to them or sending any test to them with malicious intent. h. [Slide 8] Broader Biblical Truth: But is this true? Does the bible teach this concept, that God is the unchanging source for all good giving and perfect gifts? Psalm 85:12 says that the Lord will give what is good. Romans 8:28 says that for those who love God and are called according to His purpose, all things are for our good. The Old Testament is a long story of God's lovingkindness and covenant faithfulness to Israel despite their continued spiritual adultery. From cover to cover, the Word of God reveals that God is the giver of good and perfect gifts. He is the only source for all these gifts. And He is unchanging. He is constant. i. Broader Biblical Application: So CBC, no matter what you face. No matter what trial. No matter what test. Even in the gravest of temptations. Even in the greatest of hardships. Do not be led astray. Do not think for one instant that God is toying with you. That God is playing with you. That God is giving evil to you. Oh my friends. God gives good gifts to those He loves. But they are good by His definitions – which may differ sharply from ours… nevertheless, they are good, and intended to prove, progress and perfect our faith. Do not be deceived. God is Good. Transition: [Slide 9(blank)] But what good is it to have a good God who gives good things when He is powerless to stop the bad things? Is God truly able to plan all things for our good? II.) God is Absolutely Sovereign over our eternal destiny, so we must not deny this when tested. a. [Slide 10] 18 – In the exercise of His will i. This next verse opens with a passive participle and it is not easy to translate. ii. The evidence for this is in the various translations that we trust. 1. 2 say – He chose 2. 4 others say – Of His own will 3. 1 says – By His own choice 4. NET – By His sovereign plan iii. God is a God who wills these godly good things and perfect gifts to be. iv. And James is going to give an example of those good gifts, and how God gives them. v. This is an exercise of His will. He is choosing. He is planning this out. And since He is the only one who can do this and does it without changing – the NET's translation is actually spot on if we are going for meaning. It isn't very “word for word” but if we want to drive to the heart of what James actually means… vi. It is “By His Sovereign plan” vii. It is something God wishes or wants – and He is the only being capable of doing it. For He is the only source for Godly good things and perfect gifts – of which what follows is one… and perhaps is the chief among them. viii. So, what is the greatest perfect gift? What is the best godly good thing we can be given? b. [Slide 11] He brought us forth i. There is a comparison happening here that we may not see if we don't pause to consider something. ii. This word “to bring forth” is used in the NASB at the end of verse 15 when it says that sin brings forth death. iii. Last week we looked at that in the CSB which translated the word “gives birth.” Which it does again here in verse 18. iv. But what I didn't show you last week is that this word used for giving birth to sin is not the same word for giving birth to death. v. You see our evil lusts give birth to sin – which is a Greek word putting emphasis on the actual action of giving birth. Labor we could say. vi. But when sin is fully grown it gives birth to death. The Greek word for “gives birth” here puts emphasis on the completion of pregnancy – ie having the baby. vii. These are subtle differences in meaning but the NASB actually reflects those differences by translating this bring forth. Which emphasizes the end. viii. However, we might miss the obvious reference to our spiritual new birth here if we neglect the birth analogy. ix. Our sin ends in our spiritual death… but only the will of the never changing Father who is the only giver of godly good and perfect gifts can bring us new birth. x. And not just the process of that birth – but all the way to completion. He brings us life. xi. And how does He bring us to life? c. [Slide 12] By the word of truth i. Literally by the true message. ii. By the gospel of Jesus Christ. iii. I don't want to go too deep into theology, but I do want to point out places where the bible speaks about certain deep subjects. iv. For the last 400 years there has been a question that has plagued Christianity. v. How does the sovereignty of God and His command to believe on Christ for salvation fit together? vi. If God is truly in control of all things but commands us to do something and we will be saved – then how do these fit together? vii. We could take the answer – well I don't understand but I just believe it. That's ok. viii. We could say – this is just a paradox that we need to accept both sides. Which is also fine. ix. But I don't want to pass up the opportunity that it is here to try to harmonize these two teachings. x. Every couple years we post a survey that tests our knowledge of key doctrinal beliefs. And every year there is one question that our answers turn up very mixed. The question is “The Holy Spirit gives a spiritual new birth or new life before a person has faith in Jesus Christ.” The questions are true/false and we are given 5 options between strongly agree and strongly disagree. xi. Several state that they strongly disagree to this. Implying that they think belief precedes or comes before new birth. Several others strongly affirm the statement. And some brave souls said they were not sure

Love Your Work
278. Summary: The Elements of Eloquence: Secrets of the Perfect Turn of Phrase

Love Your Work

Play Episode Listen Later May 5, 2022 11:48


There are some invisible structures in language, and using them can be the difference between your message being forgotten or living through the ages. These are The Elements of Eloquence, which is the title of Mark Forsyth's book. I first picked this up a couple years ago, and have read it several times since then. I think it's one of the best writing books, and has dramatically improved my writing. Here is my summary of The Elements of Eloquence: Secrets of the Perfect Turn of Phrase. How powerful could this stuff be? Can hidden patterns in language really be the difference between being remembered and forgotten? The technical term for the study of these patterns is “rhetoric,” and yes, it can make a big difference. Misremembered phrases While it's hard to find data on what has been forgotten – see 99.9% of everything ever said or written – there are examples of things that have been misremembered. You've heard the expression, “blood, sweat, and tears.” That comes from a Winston Churchill speech. He actually said he had “nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat.” Remember when, in The Wizard of Oz, the Wicked Witch of the West said, “Fly, my pretties, fly!”? Well, it never happened. She actually merely exclaimed “Fly!” four times in a row. The line remembered as “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned”, was actually "Heav'n has no rage, like love to hatred turned, Nor hell a fury, like a woman scorned." I'll get into some theories about why these phrases were misremembered in a bit. Non-sensical expressions You can also see evidence of the power of rhetoric in expressions that have spread through culture. Sometimes they don't make literal sense, but have appealing patterns. It “takes two to tango,” but why not “it takes two to waltz”? People go “whole hog,” but why not “whole pig”? Why “cool as a cucumber”? Why “dead as a doornail”? Alliteration You may have noticed these phrases all have alliteration, which is the simplest of rhetorical forms. You're probably already familiar with it. All you have to do to use alliteration is start a couple words in a phrase with the same letter. I've noticed some evidence of the power of alliteration looking at expressions across English and Spanish. For example, if you directly translated “the tables have turned,” which is said often, nobody would know what you were talking about. But they would understand if you directly translated “the things have changed,” which nobody says. In Spanish, that's “las cosas han cambiado.” See? Alliteration. Tricolon So, why was Winston Churchill's quote misremembered as “blood, sweat, and tears.” Forsyth thinks it was probably because the tricolon is more appealing than the tetracolon. A tricolon is when three things are listed, a tetracolon, four. Famous tricolons include, “Eat, drink, and be merry,” and “It's a bird! It's a plane! It's superman.” Barack Obama's short victory speech in 2008 had twenty-one tricolons. Forsyth points out that tricolons seem to be more memorable if the first two things are short and closely-related, and the final thing is longer and a little more abstract. Like, “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Isocolon Tricolon is three things, tetracolon is four, so is isocolon just one? In a way. An isocolon is not one thing, but one structure, repeated two times. For example, “Roses are red. Violets are blue.” Epizeuxis When you do repeat one thing, that's called epizeuxis. So, when the Wicked Witch of the West said, “Fly! Fly! Fly! Fly!,” that was epizeuxis, but it didn't turn out to be memorable. Diacope People think the Wicked Witch of the West said “Fly, my pretties, fly!” That structure is called a diacope, which is essentially a verbal sandwich. It's one word or phrase, then another word or phrase, then that same word or phrase once again. So “Burn, baby burn,” from the song “Disco Inferno” was diacope, and so was one of the most famous lines in film, “Bond. James Bond.” Why do people think the Wicked Witch of the West said, “Fly, my pretties, fly!”? Probably not only because diacope is a more memorable form than epizeuxis, but also because there's other diacope in the film, such as “Run, Toto. Run!” Zeugma So, why did the phrase “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,” live on? I notice there's some alliteration in the phrase (“Hell hath...”), but Forsyth doesn't attribute any rhetorical structures to the phrase. However – besides the sweeping generalization about women that can't help but tickle the tribal human mind – the actual, original phrase came in the form of zeugma. Zeugma is using one verb to apply action to multiple clauses. So if you write “Tom likes whisky, Dick vodka, Harry crack cocaine,” you're using the verb “likes” one time for all three clauses, instead of repeating it. So the original phrase was from a seventeenth-century play called The Mourning Bride, and, once again, went “Heav'n has no rage, like love to hatred turned, Nor hell a fury, like a woman scorned.” The having is attributed to both heaven and hell, which makes it a zeugma. Ironically, Forsyth points out, there's a few phrases using zeugma that aren't remembered as such. So zeugma is memorable, but it's not. My personal theory is zeugmas take more attention to process. They make you stop and read it again. That extra attention helps us remember, but our memories are simplistic. This is something I get to see firsthand when people tell me they've read one of my books. You'd be amazed the different variations the human mind puts on simple titles such as The Heart to Start or Mind Management, Not Time Management. Chiasmus We've established that alliteration is pretty powerful for creating memorable phrases, and we've talked about why some short phrases are misremembered. But what about longer pieces of prose? The most powerful rhetorical form for a full sentence has to be the chiasmus. The word chiasmus comes from the Greek letter, “chi,” which is shaped like an X. So, chiasmus is when language crosses over. For example, when the three musketeers said, “One for all, and all for one,” that was chiasmus. The structure is ABBA, which happens to also be the name of a band that didn't do too poorly. Politicians use chiasmus a lot. Hillary Clinton said, in her bid for president, “The true test is not the speeches a president delivers, it's whether the president delivers on the speeches.” Forsyth points out that JFK's inauguration speech was “chiasmus crazy.” Having watched it on YouTube, I have to agree, there's enough chiasmus to make you dizzy. But at least one of those phrases lived on: “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” One chiasmus I've noticed – on a more granular level – is in the title of The Four Hour Work Week. It's a chiasmus of assonance – assonance being the repetition of vowel sounds. It goes, E-O-O-O-E: The Four Hour Work Week. Mix that in with a little alliteration (“Work Week”), and a promise you can't ignore (working four hours a week), and you've got a book title with a chance to be a hit. Anadiplosis, Epistrophe, Anaphora A few more rhetorical forms that have to do with the order of words within clauses: anadiplosis, epistrophe, and anaphora. Anadiplosis is repeating the last word or phrase of a clause as the first word or phrase of the next. Yoda used anadiplosis when he said, “Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” Malcolm X used anadiplosis of phrases when he said, “Once you change your philosophy, you change your thought pattern. Once you change your thought pattern, you change your attitude.” That's also anaphora, which is starting each sentence or clause with the same words. Anaphora was also used in the Bible: “A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted,” which just sounds wrong if you're more used to the adaptation of this in the song, “Turn! Turn! Turn!”, by The Byrds. Now, if you end each clause, sentence, or paragraph with the same word or phrase, that's something different. That's called epistrophe. Dean Martin used epistrophe, singing, “When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, That's amore. When the world seems to shine like you've had too much wine, That's amore.” Honorable mention There's of course much more to The Elements of Eloquence. The terms for these rhetorical forms are intimidating and hard to remember, but Mark Forsyth weaves together his descriptions with incredible, well, eloquence. Some other forms that deserve honorable mention: Syllepsis: using a word one time, but in two different ways. “Make love not war,” is a subtle syllepsis. Polyptoton: using a word twice, as both a noun and an adjective. “Please please me” was a polyptoton. Hendiadys: using an adjective as a noun, such as if you were to say, “I'm going to the noise and the city.” Merism: referring to the parts, rather than the whole, such as when you say, “ladies and gentlemen.” Metonymy: using a thing or place to represent something that thing or place is connected to, such as if you were to say, “Downing street was left red-faced last night at news that the White House was planning to attack the British Crown with the support of Wall Street.” There's your Elements of Eloquence summary There's my summary of The Elements of Eloquence. There's a lot more in the book about bringing eloquence to longer passages of text, such as through rhythmical structures like iambic pentameter. Will using these structures automatically make your writing great? No, in fact if you practice these structures, your writing will probably be a little strange at first. But you're probably already using some of these concepts, and with some knowledge and practice, you can use them more adeptly. The Elements of Eloquence is a fantastic writing book. I read it over and over. I highly recommend it. About Your Host, David Kadavy David Kadavy is author of Mind Management, Not Time Management, The Heart to Start and Design for Hackers. Through the Love Your Work podcast, his Love Mondays newsletter, and self-publishing coaching David helps you make it as a creative. Follow David on: Twitter Instagram Facebook YouTube Subscribe to Love Your Work Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Stitcher YouTube RSS Email Support the show on Patreon Put your money where your mind is. Patreon lets you support independent creators like me. Support now on Patreon »     Show notes: http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/elements-of-eloquence-summary/

Lost in Citations
#104 - Ramonda, K. (2019). A double-edged sword: Metaphor and metonymy through pictures for learning idioms. International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching.

Lost in Citations

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 19, 2022 46:53


Chris interviews Dr. Kris Ramonda (Citation 4) - Associate Professor, Faculty of Foreign Language Studies at Kansai University. Contacts:  haswell247@gmail.com, LostInCitations@gmail.com

Tepper Reads
Tepper Reads Spring 2022 Podcast #2 - America: Metonymy for More

Tepper Reads

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 17, 2022 19:29


Our discussion of Sanjena Sathian's Gold Diggers continues in the second podcast of the Spring 2022 season. Academic Program Managers in the Tepper School of Business' Accelerate Leadership Center, Matthew Stewart and Michelle Stoner, talk about metonymy, how it's different from metaphor, and how it helps us make sense of the world around us. Also discussed is America's penchant for quantity over quality, how gold functions in the novel and in real life, and different ways of being.

Queer Lit
"Queer Pets" with Sarah Parker and Hannah Roche

Queer Lit

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 11, 2022 47:15


Get ready for the ultimutt dream team: Dr Sarah Parker (Loughborough) and Dr Hannah Roche (York) share their clever mewsings on queer pets and their keepurrs in this pawesome episode. Although a cat called Winky, a poodle named Basket and Whym Chow, the chow, are clearly the alphas of this episode, other Modernist animals and their human companions feature as well: from Gertrude Stein to Radclyffe Hall to 'Michael Field', we've got the whole pack! We retrieve their literary hisstories to reflect on how ruff the discrepancy between different timelines of human and non-human animal lives can be, but Hannah and Sarah also read furrmidable love poetry for pets, and talk about the pupstar status most of these animals had in their humans' lives. At the tail end of the conversation, we all share some furvourite texts and films. Apparently, I need to watch She-Ra!Texts, people and pets mentioned:Sarah Parker's The Lesbian Muse and Poetic Identity, 1889-1930 (Pickering and Chatto, 2013)Michael Field: Decadent Moderns, edited by Sarah Parker and Ana Parejo Vadillo (Ohio University Press, December 2019)Sarah Parker's “Women Poets and Photography, 1860–1970” (National Portrait Gallery)https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/about/photographs-collection/featured-collections-archive/women-poets-and-photography/ Hannah Roche's The Outside Thing: Modernist Lesbian Romance (Columbia UP, 2019)Gertrude SteinRadclyffe HallDjuna BarnesAlice B. ToklasBasketMan RayBasketMarie LaurencinUna TroubridgeFidoFitz John MinniehahaHedgehog WarwickDonkey HilaryParrot CockyWinkyAmy Lowell's “Chopin”Romaine BrooksThelma WoodCat DillyH.D.BryherEkphrasisDjuna Barnes' NightwoodKathryn Bond Stockton's The Queer Child, or Growing Sideways in the Twentieth Century (Duke University Press, 2009, 92-93)Joyce's UlyssesT.S. EliotKatharine Bradley and Edith Cooper's Works and DaysWhym ChowJack Halberstam's Wild ThingsHomo Sapiens 141: Dan Savage Part 2Stein's Paris FrancePicassoMichael Field's “Trinity” Whym Chow, Flame of Love (written 1906, published 1914) Amy Lowell's “To Winky”Gertrude Stein's The Autobiography of Alice B. ToklasSarah E. Kersh, “‘Betwixt Us Two': Whym Chow, Metonymy, and the Amatory Sonnet Tradition.” Michael Fields: Decadent Moderns, 2019.Caroline Baylis Green, “Sentimental Coatings and the Subversive Pet Closet: Michael Field's Whym Chow: Flame of Love” (2018 blog post)https://www.torch.ox.ac.uk/article/sentimental-coatings-and-the-subversive-pet-closet-michael-fields-whym-chow-flame-of-love She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (Netflix)Alison Bechdel's The Secret to Superhuman StrengthI'm not kitten: You absolutely must follow Hannah (@he_roche) and Sarah (@DrSarahParker) on Twitter. If you'd like to see (p)oodles of queer pets, you could also check out @Lena_Mattheis (Twitter) or @queerlitpodcast on Instagram.Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:1. Which of the authors mentioned are you already familiar with? Do you remember non-human animals featuring in their writing and life?2. Why do you think writing about pets is often classified as ‘whimsical' or in some way less relevant?3. Please read the final scene of Djuna Barnes' novel Nightwood (1928). What function do you think the dog has here?4. What are potential roles that can be ascribed to pets in a queer household? What is problematic about these?5. Please look up Jack Halberstam's work on wildness and compare his position to Donna Harraway's Companion Species Manifesto. You may want to refer to the Queer Lit episode with Jack as well. 6. Do you think queer people have a different relationship to pets? (You may want to consider queer temporality, empathy, and queer childhoods in your response.)

How To Love Lit Podcast
T.S. Eliot - The Love Song Of J. Alfred Prufrock - Poetry Supplement - Episode2

How To Love Lit Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 5, 2021 45:30


T.S. Eliot - The Love Song Of J. Alfred Prufrock - Poetry Supplement - Episode 2 Hi, This is Christy Shriver, and we're here to discuss books that have changed the world and have changed us.    I'm Garry Shriver, and this is the How to Love Lit Podcast.  This is week two in our discussion of the trans-Atlantic icon, Thomas Stearns Eliot or as he's widely referred to, TS Eliot.  As we mentioned last week, TS Eliot was the recipient of the 1948 Nobel Prize in Literature.  When the Swedish Academy presented him this award, Gustaf Helstrom compared Eliot's contribution to those of Sigmund Freud.  Eliot understood and expressed so much of the heart of humanity during those years.      He also spoke and commented on man's hope for the future, which is something you don't really think about especially when you think about how dark a lot of his poetry is.      For Eliot, hope for the future was often found in the study of the past, and as a history and psychology teacher, this is something that resonates strongly with me.  He believed that by looking backwards we could make a better future.  I want to read just the final couple of sentences of Helstrom' introduction during the ceremony where he received his Nobel Prize.  “For you the salvation of man lies in the preservation of the cultural tradition, which, in our more mature years, lives with greater vigor within us than does primitiveness, and which we must preserve if chaos is to be avoided. Tradition is not a dead load which we drag along with us, and which in our youthful desire for freedom we seek to throw off. It is the soil in which the seeds of coming harvests are to be sown, and from which future harvests will be garnered. As a poet you have, Mr. Eliot, for decades, exercised a greater influence on your contemporaries and younger fellow writers than perhaps anyone else of our time.”    Of course that resonates with me as well.  There has been so much criticism about studying the writings of the past and many see little value to the thoughts, stories and experiences of those who lived on this planet before us.  But I strongly disagree, and  I love listening to Eliot and Helstrom.     Ha!  Well, you know what I call that?    Of course, I do, you call it, “the arrogance of the presence”    Well, I'm pretty sure I didn't coin that phrase, but yes- I believe that's exactly what it is- and creating that continuity between the past and the present seems to be the impetus, at least in part, for all the classical and historical allusions in Eliot's writing.    Well, there is no doubt about that.  For sure.  However, I wanted to go back to the psychology side of it for a minute.  When we talking Gatsby, we mentioned we'd get into a little neuroscience about what makes us enjoy all these weird metaphors and ironies.  We mentioned that Eliot would be an interesting place to talk about that because for one thing- his writing is so obviously psychological and weird- two things we don't associate with beauty necessarily.  Today, our goal is to look at the words, the metaphors, the ironies of this poem.  I promise, it will be interesting although I'm not sure I've made it sound so quite yet, so let's start our discussion thinking about our brains.    For sure,  of course the unanswerable question is the mysterious connection behind the brain and art.  Art and beauty are so important to being human.  There is no doubt it's essential for happiness.  The research behind this connection beyond that however,  is complex and there is not total agreement on what all of it means.  Of course we know art raises serotonine levels- and that's where happiness comes from- if we're talking biochemistry-      can tell you definitely from a scientific standpoint what makes any one particular thing beautiful, why do we call certain things beautiful, and why it even matter?  Of course, we all know it does, even children feel this.     We know that it absolutely DOES matter; there is no debate that we must have beauty in our world.  But let's look specifically at the beauty of words.  That matters too, but a lot of times, we really don't think of it  as much as we think visual art or music.  We know that neurons get excited when two arbitrary ideas are connected- like in the case of puns or metaphors.  Think of it like we get a hit of brain-happiness.  So, when we read poems like Prufrock, even though the images may not be what we traditionally consider beautiful, like sunsets or roses or things like that, because there is so much that is unexpected and unique, our brain is activated in different ways and we find pleasure in these connections.    Let me give you an example that is not from this poem, but most people would understand.  Let's go back to visual art. Have you ever wondered why the Mona Lisa is so famous?  Is it because this woman is just that gorgeous?  This has always confused people.  One scientist, Dr. Maragaret Livingstone, suggests the delight, at least in part is because depending on the angle, Mona Lisa's expression is different, and we get pleasure from these unexpected changes- they're unexpected.  Our brain activity is affected- and we get a happiness hit.     So, when Eliot or Fitzgerald or anyone puts two expressions together that take us by surprise- we are affected neurologically?      Researchers definitely think that's a part of it..  When we listen to the words in some of those more poetic parts of Gatsby, we can feel sensations of brain activity that scientists would connect to sensations of pleasure.  We can say it more than once and feel it again.  At the end of the day, there is pleasure in making connections- that is the human experience.  It makes us feel our humanity.  If you're far away from home and you find someone from your same hometown- you make a connection- even if it's no more than, funny, we went to the same high school,  bam- there's a sensation of pleasure.  We've made a human connection.    Having that idea in mind, when you read a poem like TS Eliot, and if you take the time to try to understand or make sense of all the connections, neuroscientists would tell you that the intellectual pursuit towards understanding the patterns in the words, solving the problems in the poem, or seeing the images provoke neural stimulation that is actually positive- especially if you have a natural affinity for word games- and that is true even if the poem itself is dark.        Which of course it really is.  It is strange when you think of a poem like Prufrock that can be so frustrating;  you have to wonder, why do people like reading it over and over again?  Why do we like reading any poem over and over again?      Exactly- Why do we like to read some books or watch some movies over again.  There are many, and I'd say the majority even if we enjoyed them the first time, do not entice us to re-read or re-watch at all?  The answer, from the neuroscience perspective is because things like poems such as Prufrock prevent easy absorption- you will understand one part of the text, but the next reading, you may find something else in a different place. So, it's a piece of art that re-stimulates your brain differently and that will keep you coming back.  Did that make sense or was that just confusing?    No, it makes sense- humanities people use words like the connection between body and spirit- science speak might be biology and psychology and our spirit- And it's easy for me to accept how all these human elements work together in a mysterious way.  I will also say, as a teacher who interacts with hundreds of people every single day, I get a lot of pleasure from all kinds of unexpected connections.  Truth be told, that may be one of my favorite things.  I don't know.  I'd have to reflect.    So, after all that intro- Let's see these connections and stimulate some brain waves.  Read stanza one, and I'll give you some thoughts on it. .     Let us go then, you and I,  When the evening is spread out against the sky  Like a patient etherized upon a table;  Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,  The muttering retreats  Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels  And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:  Streets that follow like a tedious argument  Of insidious intent  To lead you to an overwhelming question ...  Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”  Let us go and make our visit.    So, the first thing you may ask yourself is who is he talking to?  The poem. is in the second person- who's YOU? This is never explained.  Eliot never names a second person.   Is the reader being talked to- am I supposed to be the second person, like a letter or a traditional dramatic monologue? Is there an imaginary person that's this second person; is he talking to himself?  The first rule in reading modern poetry is that modern poets are like powerful women- they never explain themselves.      Well, there you go-I can almost hear that coming out of Maggie Smith's mouth in her role as the Dowager in Downton Abbey.     I know- that's who I was channeling, to be honest.  But in the case o Modern poets, they deliberately leave these ambiguities in the text for a reason, and the purpose is not to confuse the reader, although that may be how it feels.  What they want you to do, as a reader, is meet them halfway in building meaning- you, as a reader, are to make the work of art more about you as an individual- a personal connection, so to speak.  So, in this case- Who IS the YOU?- And, I'd have to ask, who do you want it to be?  What will help you make the most meaning out of the words.  What helps you make the most sense of the images?      That sounds like you're making the reading exhausting.    Well, there is that risk, so, I'm going to defy the modernists and just give you my opinion or how I interpret this- just to maybe make it easier- but let me just say- I'm not right.  I'm not wrong, but I'm also not right.  This is just ONE way of seeing things.  In fact, I may give you a couple of theories and let you go from there.      That has always frustrated me about English teachers.  There is never a right or wrong answer.    Not true, there definitely can be a wrong answer- a wrong answer is one that cannot be supported from the text.  So, it would be wrong to say, that he's talking about Martians and space aliens here- but then again, maybe- that's not true either and  you could have a space reading of this poem, I've never tried.      But here's one way of looking at it- When I look at those lines that you just read- here are my first thoughts- the words are initially decisive- come- you-and I- let us go? Like me saying, come, Garry, let's go get dessert.  Let's go to the park.   It's a nice invitation-  I see it as a guy talking in his own mine- role-playing how he wished he would talk to people in the real world- how he would like to engage other people- but there isn't anyone there yet, so he's just saying it to himself- practicing and getting up his nerve to do something he wants to do for real.  However, this spirit of bravery collides immediately with the first image.  Now remember- an image is something you can see or experience in your mind- we can see a sky- we can also feel or at least remember how it feels to be etherized- he puts these to images together-to mix the messages.    The evening is spread out against the sky like a patient etherized upon a table.      How do those two things even go together?  Obviously they don't-     If you are etherized- that means you're under the influence of ether-today we don't use ether for this- but during WW1, they used it to numb people for medicinal purposes.    Does it knock people out, make them unconscious?    Well, just smelling it won't make you lose consciousness, but it was used as an anesthetic until safer methods were invented.     And so here's how this all works- this poem is about how it feels to be a modern man- or modern person- to use more politically correct terminology.  Think of J Alfred as gender- generic- it applies beyond gender-This guy is alone.  so I look at it like he's talking to himself.  He walks out in the sky- it should be a romantic scene- he wants it to be we will see later- we're going to see that he's going to a party with a lot of women (at least maybe he is), but in this stanza, the sky doesn't invigorate him, it doesn't give him peace or a sense of fresh air- he feels nothing- it's a sensation of numbness- like being a patient who has been given strong numbing medication.  And as we keep reading, he takes us- or as I interpret it- the other side of himself- the YOU- he's talking to- into the streets and look what he sees.  These are not romantic images.  These are sleezy images.  One-night cheap hotels, sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells.  There is nothing here that connotes human connections, intimacy, fellowship. Nothing here that makes you feel happy.    Eliot creates a simile but he also personifies the streets- the streets are compared to a tedious argument- tiresome, boring, pointless- he says the intent of the streets is insidious- the definition of insidious means gradual, subtle, but with harmful effects.      The streets are not our friends.      No, they don't seem to be.  They pretend to be, but they are insidious- deceitful with harmful effects. And all of this brings us to this next like where he asks what he calls “an overwhelming question”- but he won't tell us what the question is.  Is it because he doesn't know the question?  Is it because there is not question?  There is a feeling of pointlessness in this entire stanza- and remember, for modern poetry,  the feeling is the thing.      Well, I cannot say that I don't understand this emotion that he's expressing.  I think every young person does at one point in their life or another.  We all think whatever the streets represent is glamorous at some point- but then we get knocked back by reality…hopefully sooner rather than later.    Well, that's true, and especially for modern people.  People who live in urban environments.  People who live in communities without big family or historical connections- and there is nothing in this poem to suggest that that is Prufrock's case- look at what I'm doing- I'm putting my own meaning in this poem.  I did grow up in a city of 3 million people.  My window as a child faced to the streets with people walking and laughing looking like the night life was where happiness lived.  I grew up in a city with no historical connections and so forth- so I'm meeting  Eliot in this poem and creating the images in my mind not of seedy Boston, but Belo Horizonte (although my neighborhood wasn't seedy).  It was modern.  Does that make sense at all?    Sure it does.      .  Now that I gave one spin on this first stanza- and I promise I won't do this the entire way through- we'd never finish this episode- but I want to express a framework for how to enjoy a poem like this.  Here's a second way reading this same stanza, and this may be the majority view.  Lots of people think  he's talking to a woman- the woman he wants to ask out.  It is a love song, that's in the title, so, it stands to reason if you look at it that way, that he's talking to a woman- the woman he's going to meet.  The overwhelming question in this case would be a proclamation of a love interest of some sorts.  Read the next several stanzas.     In the room the women come and go  Talking of Michelangelo.    The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,  The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes,  Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,  Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,  Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,  Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,  And seeing that it was a soft October night,  Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.    And indeed there will be time  For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,  Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;  There will be time, there will be time  To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;  There will be time to murder and create,  And time for all the works and days of hands  That lift and drop a question on your plate;  Time for you and time for me,  And time yet for a hundred indecisions,  And for a hundred visions and revisions,  Before the taking of a toast and tea.    In the room the women come and go  Talking of Michelangelo.    This business of Michelangelo is funny.  Why do they have to be talking of Michelangelo?      I know- Eliot does a lot with figurative language in this poem- meaning he isn't always being literal about everything.  This will sound technical, but not boring, I hope.   As we all know- even today, authors use similes and metaphors to help us understsnd their ideas- that take something we don't understand, compare it to something we do understand and bam- they make sense- oh my love is a red red rose- you don't know what your love is like, but you do know what a rose is and a red red rose must be a very very deep and beautiful one so there- the metaphor makes me love you    Or at least Robert Burns.  Didn't he say that?    True, although I think that line has gotten some use over the year.  Elliot's uses metaphors and similes but really for as much imagining as we have here- not all that much.  There really are only three similes in this entire poem of over 100 lines which is strange.  He uses what we call metonymy and synecdoche-     Synec-do-what?  Isn't there a sad movie with Phillip Seymor Hoffman called that.    Yes- and ironically not too different from Prufrock- it's Big word- But it means when some part of something is used to represent something bigger than just the one thing.  So, here's what's going on- he says the women are talking of Michelangelo- what we are to understand is that the women may or may not literally be talking about Michelangelo.  Michelangelo is a thing that is standing in to represent the kinds of things women like this talk about.  These women are cultured= or at least they pretend to be- they talk about sophisticated things like classical art- likely dull things- I'm not saying that Michelangelo is necessarily dull- but for some people, maybe like a guy like Prufrock it could be- it's tedious pretentiousness- talking about things you're supposed to be interested in- things you can snub others about- but not really enjoyable- “The Galleria d' accademia is such a small museum for such an impressive piece of art like Michelangelo's David.” Don't you agree?  But I will say the sunlight there highlight  the craftmanship so characteristic of the high renaissance.  To which someone replies- “oh most definitely”..and there's a wonderful tea shop just across the street with a marvelous pastry chef name Leonardo, who makes the best biscotti.     Hahahaha- it sounds like you've been talking of Michelangelo, yourself.  Is that true about Leonardo.    Ha!  Well, it is- but it's just a bakery I found on Google.  I'm just pretending to have eaten the biscotti- I read that in a Google Review.  But the idea is the  snobbery.  Metonymy is when you use a thing to represent a bunch of things that are associated with a thing- and that's what Michelangelo is standing in for here.  Synecdoche and metonymy are so close to the same things- don't bother trying to separate them- it's something representing a larger group.    So, is the yellow fog metonymy too?    The yellow fog is the most confusing part of the whole poem.  Again, you're supposed to interpret it for yourself- but here's one idea.  We have this guy, he's getting his courage to go into a party of sophisticated women and he expects to be snubbed.  This is kind of how he sees himself- like a cat- but a fog cat it's- licking its tongue, suddenly leaping- rubbing its muzzle- a tom cat could be suave and debonair, but this one is kind of foggy- and definitely unattractive.    This is really stream of consciousness- psychological- this guy thinking of himself like a tom cat, like a fog, slying going into a party-  on a soft October night, curling up in a corner and falling asleep-  this is the most positive point in the entire poem.    Exactly- and it really is- even though it feels disconnected and scattered- but is actually highly structured and organized.  Prufrock is definitely not a sly tom cat getting ready to pounce in real life.  And when he thinks about it for half a second more he knows it.   He starting talking about time- which is really an allusion to the Bible passage in Ecclesiastes as well as Andrew Marvelll's poem To His Coy Mistress.  Marvel's poem is one of the most famous seize the day poems ever written in English.   In Marvell's poem, a suave sexy man seduces a woman by telling her they need to seize the day because she might die.  In Marvel's poem, he basically says, if we had all the time in the world, I wouldn't mind playing this coy game of you pretending to be prudish, but we don't have all the time in the world and you aren't, you're going to die, worms are going to take your virginity- you'll be ugly so if you want to maximize what you have we need to consummate this thing right now.    Ha! Well, if you know that poem, this part is extremely ironic.  Prufrock isn't bold or brave like Marvel.  Instead of overpowering the women, He makes excuses for himself- he says the exact opposite- there's plenty of time, life is long, I can put off making my move.      And the line that people have really enjoyed is that last phrase, “Time for you and time for me and time yet for a hundred indecisions, and for a hundred visions and revisions, before the taking of a toast and tea.     There is a sense that he's putting things off, but there is another sense where he sees his life as an indistinguishable endless charade of toast and tea and pointlessness.  No end in sight to the mad dreariness of his existence.  Prufrock as we're going to see as we keep reading is going no where.  He's going no where in life- and I think you could think that he's physically going no where-     like he may not even really be at the party-- even though at the beginning of the poem he definitely says, let us go,    I think so.  It's ambiguous.  Maybe he's no where- this encounter is in his mind, and that's why he's in hell.  Hell is a place you never get out of.      And indeed there will be time  To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”  Time to turn back and descend the stair,  With a bald spot in the middle of my hair —  (They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”)  My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,  My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin —  (They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”)  Do I dare  Disturb the universe?  In a minute there is time  For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.    For I have known them all already, known them all:  Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,  I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;  I know the voices dying with a dying fall  Beneath the music from a farther room.                 So how should I presume?    And I have known the eyes already, known them all—  The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,  And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,  When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,  Then how should I begin  To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?                 And how should I presume?    And I have known the arms already, known them all—  Arms that are braceleted and white and bare  (But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!)  Is it perfume from a dress  That makes me so digress?  Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.                 And should I then presume?                 And how should I begin?    Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets  And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes  Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?    There are no less than 15 questions in this poem.  The most important ones seem to be centered here with “can I ask a woman out for a date?  Which some how gets connected to “What is the meaning of life?”  Prufrock is a poem about being lonely, isolated, unable to make human connections.  Unable to get out of my head, my physical location- the hell I've created for myself.    Well, in a sense, it's possible these are two versions of the same questions.  Human intimacy and interaction is what makes us love our life.  What is a life without intimacy, connectivity, courage.  These are the things that a modern man like  J. Alfred Prufrock does not have.  Prufrock clearly wishes he could get beyond himself- to ask out a woman is an expression of that.  It changes reality- one way or another.  But it takes boldness to do that.  You have to, as we used to say, “man up”- and Prufrock has none of that.  The sexual loneliness is a manifestation of a metaphysical problem really.      Which takes us to another synechoche- these claws  Here the claws represent the crab.  Prufrock thinks he should have been a crab.     I should have been a pair of ragged claws  Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.    And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!  Smoothed by long fingers,  Asleep ... tired ... or it malingers,  Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.  Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,  Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?  But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,  Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter,  I am no prophet — and here's no great matter;  I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,  And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,  And in short, I was afraid.    And would it have been worth it, after all,  After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,  Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,  Would it have been worth while,  To have bitten off the matter with a smile,  To have squeezed the universe into a ball  To roll it towards some overwhelming question,  To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,  Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—  If one, settling a pillow by her head                 Should say: “That is not what I meant at all;                 That is not it, at all.”    And would it have been worth it, after all,  Would it have been worth while,  After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,  After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—  And this, and so much more?—  It is impossible to say just what I mean!  But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:  Would it have been worth while  If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,  And turning toward the window, should say:                 “That is not it at all,                 That is not what I meant, at all.”    And here we see way more of Eliot criticizing modern man.  We are too anxious, likely overeducated in impractical things.  Our anxiety of failure brought on by our culture, our education, urban expectations paralyze us into doing nothing.  We have no courage.  There's a reference here to John the Baptist which I think is really interesting.  John the Baptist had his head cut off and served to King Herod.  Here, Eliot references that, but in Prufrock's case, what would bother him about being decapitated in this scenario would be that his dead head that would be served up to King Herod would reveal he's balding.  He just can't, to use his phrase,   “ bite off the matter with a smile,  and squeeze the universe into a ball”.  He can't be like Lazarus in the Bible and come back from the dead. And when we see what horrifies him- he's horrified that he'll approach a woman, she'll listen to him then reply that “that is not what I meant at all.  That is not it, at all.”    Oh my, how could a guy like J. Alfred misinterpret my politiness for interest?  “That is not what I meant t all”. It's embarrassement, shame, rejection- all of the bad things in life.  Prufrock's life has so little meaning in any other area thst. Concern about his looks, a rejection from a woman he doesn't appear he even cares about, is enough to wipe him out.  Let's finish.     No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;  Am an attendant lord, one that will do  To swell a progress, start a scene or two,  Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,  Deferential, glad to be of use,  Politic, cautious, and meticulous;  Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;  At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—  Almost, at times, the Fool.    I grow old ... I grow old ...  I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.    Shall I part my hair behind?   Do I dare to eat a peach?  I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.  I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.    I do not think that they will sing to me.    I have seen them riding seaward on the waves  Combing the white hair of the waves blown back  When the wind blows the water white and black.  We have lingered in the chambers of the sea  By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown  Till human voices wake us, and we drown.    Prince Hamlet, of course, is the most famous slow-mover in the world.  Prince Hamlet's most famous line is, “To be or not to be, that is the question.”  Prince Hamlet was told by his father, as a ghost, that he was supposed to revenge his father's death.  Hamlet waffled, went back and forth, debated, worried about if life was even worth- should I kill myself. But the thing about Hamlet, in the final scene of the play he does act. He does actually have a purpose to exist.  He does revenge his father.  He does DO something.      Prufrock is not Prince Hamlet.  He's not even a prince at all.      And, He will NEVER act, and he knows it.  He is going be a failure, a loser, and not because he tried and failed, but because he doesn't have any energy, any courage, any desire to even try for anything.  He is just going to do nothing?  He will spend his energy worrying if he should eat a peach.  Not even  fictitious sirens in his imagination will try to seduce him- that's an allusion to the Odyssey- but you'd think, if you were a person who can live in a made up world- in your made up world the sirens would want you- isn't that what video game world is about in part.?  For for Prufrock, Not even in his dreams is he seductive.  He just linger by the sea in his imagination until he wakes up and the final lines of the poem, “we drown.”    That IS dark.  So nihilistic.      Well, it's modernism for- not the most positive take on the modern world- those guys knew how to see the dark side of life.  But you know what, unlike Fitzgerald who chose to sink in a sea of poor choices, Eliot did not.  The man who wrote Prufrock as a young man, wrote The Waste Land slightly older, and then wrote the “Four Quartets” later in life.  These last meditations are about time, divinity, and humility among other things and are considered his finest works.  All the things that confuse Prufrock and defeat Prufrock really don't defeat the real T.S. Eliot.  And I guess that's where I find the redemption.  Eliot's work takes us through the modern world but he navigates himself to a place of peace. I like that about him. We've all been Prufrock at one time or another.  The virtual world of today is way worse than anything Eliot experienced, and  Especially now because of the pandemic, many of us have felt a lot of the stream of conscious judgement poor Prufrock feels- but we don't have to drown or be him- we can be Lazarus- and come out of it.  And that's the thought I want to take away from this.    Well, there you have it, the positive spin on nihilism.  We hope you have been able to understand just a little bit of this very confusing poem.  Maybe it's inspired you, maybe it hasn't.  Thanks for being with us this week.  Next week, we are going to change directions and get into a little fantasy literaeture with J.R.R. Tolkein and The Hobbit.  That will be a welcome change of pace.      HA!1. It will be good though.  He's a great writer, and although also a devoted Catholic, and from Oxford, England has a very different take on things.  I look forward to it.       

Living Hope Classes
Figurative Language

Living Hope Classes

Play Episode Listen Later May 26, 2021 36:06


By As literature, the Bible contains writing styles and conventions that are common in most languages. One of those conventions is the use of figurative language, which makes the words in the Bible more diverse, expressive, and impactful. Figure of speech – “A figure of speech is a word or phrase that is used in a non-literal way to create Continue Reading

Learning Literature with Purba
Episode 11 : Metonymy & Synecdoche

Learning Literature with Purba

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 28, 2020 3:38


Check out the meaning and usage of Metonymy and Synecdoche in English Literature.

The Librarian's Almanac
July 9: Gothic Lit Metonymy

The Librarian's Almanac

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 9, 2020 5:26


On this day in 1764, Ann Radcliffe is born in Holborn in the West End of London. Learn how her signature style permeated literature so much, Jane Austen even parodied her. Today is July 9, 2020. This is the Librarian's Almanac. Feel free to check out more from the Librarian's Almanac on their website: http://www.librariansalmanac.com/ I'd also love to hear from you directly. Feel free to send me an email at librarians.almanac@gmail.com

Daily GNT Bible Reading Podcast
GN-Day050 Exodus 38; Exodus 39; Psalms 8; Luke 7:1-30

Daily GNT Bible Reading Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 18, 2020 22:23


EXODUS 38-39: In the two chapters we heard in Exodus yesterday, we heard of the building of the tabernacle, the Covenant Box, and the other furniture of the Holy Place and Most Holy Place. Everything was done precisely as God had described before. The actor ‘he’ as we start chapter 38 is again Bezalel. PSALM 8: Today we read Psalm 8. Verses 4-8 from this Psalm are quoted in Hebrews 2 but frequently misunderstood. The term “the son of man” does not refer to Jesus in this Psalm or in Hebrews 2, and the NLT and the GNT are correct in not using that term here. This is a psalm of praise for the awesomeness of God, expressing amazement at the place of _mankind_ in God's creation. The first verse of Ps. 8 in literal translations, “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!” This verse contains a type of figure of speech called a metonymy. Metonymy is when something small is used to stand for something big, like in the saying, “The pen is mightier than the sword”— where both ‘pen’ and ‘sword’ are metonymies. So in the sentence, ‘how majestic is your name in all the earth’, ‘name’ stands for the whole person of God, or in this case, it might stand for God’s reputation. Although English clearly uses metonymy, we don't so often use it based on ‘name’. A more natural metonymy for English and a good translation for this verse would be, “O Lord, our Lord, your glorious fingerprints are visible everywhere on earth!” LUKE 7a: Yesterday, in Luke chapter 6 we read the Beatitudes, and Jesus taught about loving others and not judging them. Jesus taught using the figures of trees and their fruit, and building houses upon a rock foundation. One of the most frequently misquoted verses in Scripture was included in yesterday’s portion of Luke 6, “Do not judge others and you will not be judged.” But if we take that to the extreme, we would not be able to recognize good and bad people, as Jesus talks about in verse 45. And there are many other places where Christians are called upon to make judgments— especially those who are shepherds over a flock of believers. But the key is not bringing judgment against others if we might be found to be guilty of the same fault.

Speaking Broadly
The Metonymy Economy

Speaking Broadly

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 9, 2020 60:39


My show describing and elaborating on my paper “The Metonymy Economy: Cognitive-Affective (Poetic) Social Science.” I tried to drop off this paper at CIA headquarters. They were not amused. But I really do think it contains insights which help us adapt to the process of adaptation itself, and to see in change the chance to assume the position of the epic poet, who is able to see emerging patterns and guide others through unfolding events.

economy cia metonymy
Which is the Best? Podcast
Which is the Best - Episode 133

Which is the Best? Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 22, 2018 46:15


We (Lee Kyle and the nation's sweetheart Sammy Dobson) are delighted that you have chosen us for your podcast needs. We've earned it though, this is episode 133 mate. You can't put a price on that amount of content. Well, you can and t's free. This week, Lee is having a slight Edinburgh Fringe tiredness breakdown and they decide Which is the Best (For that is the name of the podcast) between: Synonyms (Synonym list in cuneiform on a clay tablet, Neo-Assyrian period[1] A synonym is a word or phrase that means exactly or nearly the same as another lexeme (word or phrase) in the same language. Words that are synonyms are said to be synonymous, and the state of being a synonym is called synonymy. For example, the words begin, start, commence, and initiate are all synonyms of one another. Words are typically synonymous in one particular sense: for example, long and extended in the context long time or extended time are synonymous, but long cannot be used in the phrase extended family. Synonyms with the exact same meaning share a seme or denotational sememe, whereas those with inexactly similar meanings share a broader denotational or connotational sememe and thus overlap within a semantic field. The former are sometimes called cognitive synonyms and the latter, near-synonyms[2], plesionyms[3] or poecilonyms[4]. Contents 1 Lexicography 2 Etymology 3 Examples 4 See also 5 References 6 External links Lexicography Some lexicographers claim that no synonyms have exactly the same meaning (in all contexts or social levels of language) because etymology, orthography, phonic qualities, ambiguous meanings, usage, and so on make them unique. Different words that are similar in meaning usually differ for a reason: feline is more formal than cat; long and extended are only synonyms in one usage and not in others (for example, a long arm is not the same as an extended arm). Synonyms are also a source of euphemisms. Metonymy can sometimes be a form of synonymy: the White House is used as a synonym of the administration in referring to the U.S. executive branch under a specific president. Thus a metonym is a type of synonym, and the word metonym is a hyponym of the word synonym. The analysis of synonymy, polysemy, hyponymy, and hypernymy is inherent to taxonomy and ontology in the information-science senses of those terms. It has applications in pedagogy and machine learning, because they rely on word-sense disambiguation. Etymology The word comes from Ancient Greek sýn (σύν; "with") and ónoma (ὄνομα; "name"). Examples Synonyms can be any part of speech, as long as both words belong to the same part of speech. Examples: verb buy and purchase adjective big and large adverb quickly and speedily preposition on and upon Synonyms are defined with respect to certain senses of words: pupil as the aperture in the iris of the eye is not synonymous with student. Such like, he expired means the same as he died, yet my passport has expired cannot be replaced by my passport has died. In English, many synonyms emerged in the Middle Ages, after the Norman conquest of England. While England's new ruling class spoke Norman French, the lower classes continued to speak Old English (Anglo-Saxon). Thus, today we have synonyms like the Norman-derived people, liberty and archer, and the Saxon-derived folk, freedom and bowman. For more examples, see the list of Germanic and Latinate equivalents in English. and Cinnamon (A spice)

The Veteran Gamers-Xbox One PS4 PC
The Veteran Gamers Episode 408 - Featuring A Shouty American!

The Veteran Gamers-Xbox One PS4 PC

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 2, 2017 118:31


Welcome to show 408. This week we played some stuff, including South Park, Life Is Strange, Destiny 2, Just Dance 2016, Rocket League and Metonymy. As always we had all of this weeks big gaming news brought to you by everyone and we rounded out the show with emails and all the other usual stuff. Enjoy. Send Speakpipes to www.speakpipe.com/veterangamers Follow us on twitter @veterangamersuk and if you have any opinions or questions, send emails to: podcast@veterangamers.co.uk Gamertags Chinny – Xbox ChinChinny, Sony Chinny1985, Steam ChinChinny The Daddy – Xbox Big Daddy Blast, Steam BigDaddyBlaster, Sony xXBig-DaddyXx Duke – Steam DukeSkath    

Mere Rhetoric
Killingsworth (Review day!)

Mere Rhetoric

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 3, 2016 9:12


Review/Killingsworth   Welcome to MR the podcast about the ideas, people and movements who have shaped rhetorical history. Today we’re going to be talking about what are perhaps some old ideas, but from a fresh angle. What if the way we thought about traditional rhetoric in a more modern context? But first, let me give a shout out to the Humanities Media Project, whose support lets us record these podcasts in such sound-proof-room splendor, and Jacob in the booth, who not only lets me know when I’ve muttered my lines, but edits it up so that it doesn’t sound like I did. Okay, back to the show. Rhetoric is a field bound by tradition. And no tradition is more traditional than Aristotle’s original three appeals: ethos logos pathos. Often times I think that if my first year composition students learn one thing this semester, it is ethos logos pathos and if they remember one thing five years after this semester, it will be ethos, logos and pathos. But one of the problems with the appeals is that they are ethos, logos and pathos--weird Greek words that don’t exactly map onto English easily. I’m forever explaining that a pathetic appeal isn’t a terrible one, or a tragic one, or that logos doesn’t just mean computer-program logic. M. Jimmie Killingsworth set out to reform and modernise the appeals in his 2005 text  titles, appropriately enough, “Appeals in Modern Rhetoric:an Ordinary-Language approach.”   Killingsworth breaks down the appeals in this way: Appeals to authority and evidence; appeals to time; appeals to place; appeals to the body; appeals to gender; appeals to race; appeals to race; appeals through tropes and the appeal of narrative.   Some of these may see straightforward and ever-lasting: appeals to authority, for instance, seem as old as time and require rhetors to judiciously determine which authorities are authoritative for them as well as for the audience.   But some of the appeals restructure how we think about rhetoric. Appeals to time, for instance, is a general way to describe how Aristotle’s other division, the genres of rhetoric, relate to each other. The genres of rhetoric, you might recall, include forensic (looking at the past), epideictic (looking at the present) and deliberative (looking towards the future). Again, because these genres seem very distant to modern audiences, Killingsworth translates into contemporary business writing:” reports narrate the pass, instructions deal with actions in the present time and proposals mak arguments for future action” (38). But these genres aren’t just neutral--they may an argument to the audience. Arguing that something is modern, or urgent is an appeal in itself, as does harkening back to the halcyon days of yesteryear. Instead of thinking of genres as genres, Killingsworth encourages us to think of them as arguments.   Killingsworth also breaks down the appeal about the author into some of the key identities which modern rhetors might use: appeals to race and to gender. He also pulls a bit an Aristotle himself in classifying these appeals further. TAke, for instance, appeal to race, where he talks about the way that racial stereotypes creates an othering. Fine, we might say, we all know that racial stereotypes create a wedge between groups, and “reduce the complexity of individuals and cultural groups” (99) but how exactly does this happen? In three ways, Killingworth suggests, in true artistotlean fashion. “Diminishment of character involves the denial of key human qualities” such as assuming that a group of people don’t love their children as keenly as another or that a group doesn’t value romantic love (99-100). Dehumanization goes even further and makes the people into animals or objects. The extreme example of this is chattel slavery, which completely dehumanizes slaves. Finally, demonization is where a race is seen as superhumanly wicked. “Western devils” for instance, or Indian witches, or black devils, who only exist to perpetrate crimes against another race. (100).   Killingsworth may be straying back difficult terminology when he talks about appeal through tropes--what the heck is a trope? Well, he’s talking about the four master tropes: metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche and irony, but he’s going to describe what they are and how they work as appeals in this way: you can identify one position with another, like a metaphor; you can associate one position with another, like metonymy; you can represent one position by another and you can close the distance between two positions and increase the distance from a third, like irony (121). Let’s give a few practical examples of how that might work. Metaphor, you might remember, is a little like an SAT verbal question. If I say “Cedar pollen smacked me in the face today,” I’m saying pollen is to immune system as fist is to face. In terms of an argument, you might say, like Martin Luther King Jr, that “Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is cover up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed” and so make the comparison that activists are to injustice as doctors are to illness (125). Metonymy sustitutes the part for the whole, for example, when someone says they question the bible, they don’t question the existence of such a book, but the validity of the events narrated therein.Synecdoche looks at a critical part for the full. There might be a critical story that tells a fuller story. For example, if I begin a paper about graduate student writers by telling about a student who was frustrated when her literature professors didn’t give her quizzes about the main characters in the books they read, I’m saying that something about this story relates to how all graduate students feel when they transition from undergraduate programs. Burke calls this the representative anecdote--a small story that represents a larger trend. Irony is, as Killingsworth says, “the most complex and diffitult of the four master tropes” (131). Irony is a beast, and we’ll talk more in-depth about irony this semester when we talk about Booth’s Rhetoric of Irony. Killingsworth here, though, points out that the “crucial elements of iron’ are “Tone and insider knowledge” (132). We come to identify with the rhetor when we hear irony because we’re both in the know.   So once I was describe satire and I described Swift’s a Modest Proposal as a magnificent work of ironic satire and one of my students sat bolt upright in his seat. “That was ironic?!” he said. “I just assumed Swift was some kind of sicko.” Really, Swift says we should eat babies, so how does anyone think he isn’t some kind of sicko? Well, partially because before I read a Modest Proposal, I knew Swift was a clergyman who worked with poor people in Ireland for most of his career, and I also knew that Swift loved satire--he wrote Gulliver’s Travels, after all. Because of my inside knowledge, I was able to interpret Swift’s exaggerations as irony. And then Swift and I get to stand together, winking at each other against the supporters of the Corn Tax. Irony unites the speaker and audience as we poke fun at the subjects of our irony (132-3).   So Killingsworth provides a review of many of the principles of rhetoric we’ve discussed in the podcast and well as a preview of things to come. Rhetoric, he proposes, is not just about stuffy terms and dead Greeks, but something that continues with us in all situations, even in the modern world.

Mere Rhetoric
Four Master Tropes (NEW AND IMPROVED!

Mere Rhetoric

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 2, 2015 10:02


  Welcome to Mere Rhetoric the podcast for beginners and insiders about the people, ideas and movement that have shaped rhetorical history. I’m Mary Hedengren and   the University of Texas’ Humanities Media Project supports the podcast and   A few weeks ago I was at an excellent lecture by Collin Brooke here at the university of Texas and he was talking about applying the master tropes to different models of networks. Then I thought--by Jove, the Master Tropes! What a brilliant idea for a podcast! So with all deference to Dr. Brooke, let’s dive into these four beauties of the world of tropes.   A trope, you may or not know, is a way of presenting thought in language. A trope is different from what’s called a figure because it doesn’t deal with arranging words, but rather arranging thought. For example, a figure might be something like hyperbaton, which is the the way that Yoda talks: “Patience you must have” just means “you must have patience” there’s not change in the thought behind the words, but the refiguring of the words creates interest, so Yoda says things like “Miss them do not” instead of do not miss them, but the ideas aren’t changed at all. That’s figures.   Occasionally, though, Yoda will use a trope. For example, once he said ““In a dark place we find ourselves, and a little more knowledge lights our way.” This is, as it turns out, a metaphor: knowledge doesn’t actually cast a glow, but it does make things metaphorically clear. The words transform the ideas: light equals knowledge. It’s not that Yoda changed the words around--all considered this is pretty syntactically straight-forward for the sage-green sage--but he’s presented the ideas in a different way. This is a trope, not a figure. It is, as a matter of fact, one of the four master tropes: Metaphor, Synecdoche, Metonymy and Irony.  It’s possible that these terms aren’t familiar to you, or only in a vague, AP English sort of way, so let me provide examples and definitions. Metaphor is the trope that is most familiar to us: knowledge is light, the Force is a river, many Storm troupers are a wall. So I’m going to skip over that. Synecdoche is--aside from being difficult to pronounce, using the part to represent the whole. I always think of that movie Synecdoche New York, where the guy builds a replica of New York for a movie. The standard examples include things like “earning your bread and butter” when you’re hopefully earning much more than that or “putting boots on the ground” when the military often needs soldiers, too, to fill those boots. I used to joke with my Mormon comedy group since everyone prays to “bless the hands that prepared this food,”  if there was a terrible accident in the kitchen and everyone died, at least the hands would be preserved. So you get the idea. Metonymy can sometimes be a little more confusing, because it, like Synecdoche, involves using a word associated with the idea to stand in for the idea itself. We say things like “the White House has issued a statement” when the building itself has done no such thing, or “Hollywood is corrupt” to represent the movie business generally. Some people will say that synecdoche is just a specific kind of metonymy, like how simile is a specific kind of metaphor. Finally, irony may seem like a simple, straightforward trope, but it can be notoriously complex, as Wayne Booth describes in greater detail in The Rhetoric of Irony. How we we know when someone is being ironic? How much is irony dependent on understanding cultural cues? Why do we say the opposite of what we mean as a way to say what we want? Tricky stuff all around. The four master tropes are probably most familiar to rhetoricians as the essay found way in the back of Kenneth Burke’s Grammar of Methods, way way back as an appendix. There, Burke equates these over-arching tropes with different epistemic perspectives: metaphor correlates with perspective, metonymy with reduction, synecdoche with representation, and irony with dialectic. The way that we construct thought depends on how we use these four master tropes. Remember when we talked about the Metaphors we live by? Well, Burke says that we don’t just live by metaphors individually, but also by the idea of metaphor, or by reduction, representation or dialectic. The tropes, instead of just being a way to make your writing more flowery, can be a critical part of invention, and how you see the world more generally. Are you inclined to think inductively, looking at a couple of examples of Sith lords and there after making generalizations about the group as a whole and their capacity to run a competent daycare? It’s possible to think in terms of irony, transpositioning one view of truth with an anti-thetical perspective: can Anikin be both on the dark side and not on the dark side? Can you both do and do not if you only try? These master tropes are not just ways of expressing ideas about the world, but coming to make ideas as well. I’m a huge fan of Burke, but I’m afraid that I can’t give him credit for coming up with the idea of four master tropes that encompass other ways of figuring ideas. I’m sorry to say that that distinction goes to--ew--Petrus Ramus. Yes, Ramus, the mustache-twirling villain of rhetoric himself. Back when we did our series on the villains of rhetoric, Ramus was public enemy number one, removing invention from rhetoric and diminishing the whole affair to a series of branching “yes and no” questions and needless ornamentation. And yet it was Ramus, in his eagerness to classify everything into categories and subcategories who coined the idea of the master tropes back in 1549. Fortunately the idea was taken up by a more palatable figure of rhetorical history, Giambattista Vico, who in the 18th century, identified the master tropes as basic tropes, or fundamental tropes, being those to which all others are reducible.   Since Burke, though, others have taken up the idea that these tropes of arranging ideas might become ways to think about the world in general. Hayden White, for instance, saw the master tropes as representing something about literature.   Trope Genre ('mode of emplotment') Worldview ('mode of argument') Ideology ('mode of ideological implication') Metaphor romance formism anarchism Metonymy comedy organicism conservatism Synecdoche tragedy mechanism radicalism Irony satire contextualism liberalism   He constructed a table where each trope has its own genre, worldview and ideology. Metaphor, for instance, was about romance--or we might say fantasy--and was associated with formism and an ideology of anarchism because anything might apply as a metaphor. Metonymy was associated with comedy, organicism and conservatism--presumably because if you assume that “the White House” speaks for the country, you’re putting a lot of stock in the traditional power that dominates. Conversely, synecdoche was associated with tragedy, mechanism and radicalism. Irony, naturally enough, was the trope of satire and its world view of contextualism and liberalism. Once White had come up with this tidy table, he because to think about the tropes not just statically, but how they might evolve temporally, both in terms of an individual child’s development and in a civilization. Metaphor was the earliest stage, corresponding to infants up to two years old and aligned with Foucault’s conceptualization of the Renaissance. Then metaphor gives way to metonymy, the domain of children from 2-7, which White lines up with the Classical period and the Enlightenment--very conservative and fond of straight-forward comedy. Next comes synecdoche of tweens and the modernist period--radically breaking from the past and finally, in crowning achievement, irony, the stage of teenagers and adults, corresponding to the post-modernist era, with its love of counterintuitive and contradictory thought.   Hayden White's Sequence of Tropes Piagetian stages of cognitive development White's alignment of Foucault's historical epochs Metaphor sensorimotor stage (birth to about 2 years) Renaissance period (sixteenth century) Metonymy pre-operational stage (2 to 6/7 years) Classical period (seventeenth and eighteenth centuries) Synecdoche concrete operations stage (6/7 to 11/12 years) Modern period (late eighteenth to early twentieth century) Irony formal operations stage (11/12 to adult) Postmodern period Others have highlighted the philosophical or historiographical possibilities of the mastertropes, including Jakobson and Foucault himself. Which brings me back to this fascinating, exploratory lecture by Collin Brooke.   Brooke suggested another correlation for the master tropes: not ways of thinking or periods of time, but networks of connection. Networks are a big stinking deal for digital humanists and new media rhetoricians like Brooke, and some of the different types of networks, brooke proposes, may correlate to the master tropes: hierarchies, for instance, are like metaphors, which correspond across groups--the padowan learner doesn’t really tell us much about the Jedi master who trains her, but you expect the role of that padowan learner to be similar to the role of another padowan who studies under another master. Synecdoche, though, can be seen in truly random networks. A network of 200 that is truly random, is representative of a network of 2000, or of 2 million. Some networks are neither analogous like metaphor or random like synecdoche. In situations that produce what’s been called the long tail--citations for example, some groups or people are more popular because they are more popular. the more people who fear Jabba the hut--peons, bounty hunters-- the more he is feared. It creates a snowball effect that is similar to metonymy. Brooke’s ideas are inchoate and he admits that he’s not sure what network might correlate to irony--it’s all a work in progress, afterall, but it goes to show that the organization appeal of the master tropes continues. The idea of tropes that rule all the other tropes and say something meaningful about the ways in which we construct and understand the world around us is a timeless appeal that goes all the way back to Vico--er, let’s just say Vico, okay.  Until next week--miss us you must not because patience you must have.  

Literature Studies at the School of Advanced Study
Colonizing the Canon: Metonymy and Opposition in the Realist Novel

Literature Studies at the School of Advanced Study

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 4, 2014


Institute of Modern Languages Research Keynote: Dr Jennifer Yee, University of Oxford Power and Resistance in the Arts: SFS Postgraduate Conference 2014

Literature Studies at the School of Advanced Study
Colonizing the Canon: Metonymy and Opposition in the Realist Novel

Literature Studies at the School of Advanced Study

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 4, 2014 63:36


Institute of Modern Languages Research Keynote: Dr Jennifer Yee, University of Oxford Power and Resistance in the Arts: SFS Postgraduate Conference 2014

Necessary & Sufficient
119: Synecdoche & Metonymy with Chris “Stu” Stuart

Necessary & Sufficient

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 5, 2013


Yeah, so, it looks like I unwittingly did what I always tell people I’ll never do:  gave a non-expert a couple of specialist topics.  Sorry Stu!  You were a great sport.

Literary Concepts Made Easy
Metonymy & Synecdoche

Literary Concepts Made Easy

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 17, 2012 4:00


synecdoche metonymy
Anthropology
Dept Seminar: Claudia's Life - Singular lives, Gypsy metonymy

Anthropology

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 21, 2011 61:44


In this Anthropology Dept seminar (4 June 2010), Dr Paloma Gay y Blasco (University of St Andrews) looks at the place of women and marriage in Gypsy society and in ethnographic writings.

Tea & Talk Series - Fall 2009
"This is a Fragment of Me": Emerson and the Poetics of Metonymy

Tea & Talk Series - Fall 2009

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 8, 2010 63:56


Conceptual Structure, Discourse, and Language
How Compression Gives Rise to Metaphor and Metonymy

Conceptual Structure, Discourse, and Language

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 22, 2008 65:14


VINYL IS PODCAST
Episode 3: Synecdoche, Eustache

VINYL IS PODCAST

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 11, 2008 31:25


Mark saw the new Charlie Kaufman, Ryland's been seeing a lot of Jia Zhang-Ke, they both have been enjoying the Jean Eustache. Things develop and spin out from there. Plus, talk of sex, shit, piss -- gettin your wolfy rocks off -- and, once again, Nick Ray's _On Dangerous Ground_. Reprise, baby!

Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaften - Open Access LMU - Teil 01/02
Metaphor and metonymy as productive processes on the level of the lexicon

Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaften - Open Access LMU - Teil 01/02

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 1, 1990


Mon, 1 Jan 1990 12:00:00 +0100 http://epub.ub.uni-muenchen.de/5103/ http://epub.ub.uni-muenchen.de/5103/1/5103.pdf Lipka, Leonhard Bahner, Werner (Hrsg.) (1990): Metaphor and metonymy as productive processes on the level of the lexicon. International Congress of Linguists, 10.-15.08.1987, Berlin, Ost. Sprach- und Literaturwissensch