Day: May 19, 2025

🔍 Overview and Context

• Publication: College English, Vol. 30, No. 1 (Oct. 1968), pp. 31–47.
• Thesis: Metaphor is not simply a stylistic device in literature but a foundational mechanism of cultural understanding, identity, and historical consciousness.
• Kaufmann critiques dominant critical methodologies (especially New Criticism), urging a return to “rigorous literary thinking on questions of a larger than rhetorical scope” (p. 32).

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🌐 1. Metaphor as Constitutive, Not Decorative

🧠 “Controlled metaphorical stipulations establish the imaginative matrix for human growth.” (p. 33)

• Metaphor forms the cognitive infrastructure of how individuals and cultures construct meaning.
• Kaufmann argues that basic metaphors, such as “life is a voyage”, shape cultural consciousness and ethical frameworks (p. 33).
• Metaphor is thus a cultural tool, not merely a poetic flourish: “Metaphorical acculturation is the ground for our historicity.” (p. 33)

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📚 2. Case Studies: More, Kant, and Pascal

🧭 Thomas More’s Utopia

• Uses the metaphor “life is a voyage” to structure a critique of European society.
• Hythloday’s alienation signals More’s unresolved inner conflict: “To arrive in utopia…one must make the antecedent repudiation which More was fractionally tempted to but could not make.” (p. 34)

🕊️ Immanuel Kant

• In Critique of Pure Reason, Kant’s metaphor of the dove flying more freely in a vacuum expresses the illusion of pure reason independent of experience.
• Kaufmann sees this as “a new covenant…Our new covenant is with our own unaided strength” (p. 35), suggesting metaphor as philosophical boundary-setting.

😔 Blaise Pascal

• Uses metaphor to dramatize existential anxiety and spiritual vigilance.
• “Formulations are traps” – Pascal resists systematization (p. 36).
• His metaphorical loops express theological dread: “Spiritual Death is the Betrayal of Christ… Sleep is a Sweet Thing” (p. 36)

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🌀 3. Metaphor and Cultural Norms

🧩 “Metaphor functions as a great type of normative device… to create and sustain patterns of meaning.” (p. 38)

• Metaphors reflect social and cultural agreements, reinforcing normative structures.
• Example: “Sunset” in Rumanian is “the sun enters into sainthood”—revealing religious metaphor embedded in language (p. 40).
• Literary metaphor shares with cultural metaphor the role of public thinking and organizing experience (p. 38–39).

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🧱 4. Metaphor vs. Imagism

🎭 “Metaphor… culminates in overt didacticism… Imagism presupposes a passive receptivity.” (p. 39)

• Kaufmann distinguishes between metaphor (analytical, structured, didactic) and imagism (expressive, immediate, unprocessed).
• Pure imagism: “This is this and this and this”
  Metaphor: “This is that” (p. 39)

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🧬 5. Metaphor as Social and Psychological Marker

⚙️ “The metaphorical structure of a work may reveal an artist’s personal and cultural stance.” (p. 37)

• Kafka’s writing is metaphorically opaque and self-contained: “There is nothing constitutive in his artistic warrant.” (p. 39)
• Metaphorical awareness distinguishes vital art from solipsistic or dysfunctional expression.

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🏰 6. The Metaphor of “Faith as a Citadel” in Othello

🏹 “Faith is a citadel.” (p. 45)

• Structural metaphor in Othello equates spiritual trust with fortified defense.
• Othello’s tragedy is a collapse of faith: “It was Desdemona’s faith that was his citadel, not his own poor insecure ramparts.” (p. 45)

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👁️ 7. “God is an Eye”: Cultural Metaphor of Providence

👁️ “One might suppose the metaphor ‘God is an eye’ outmoded, but it infiltrates the most sophisticated circles.” (p. 46)

• Kaufmann traces this metaphor through Homer, the Stoics (Seneca), Christianity, and even existentialism (Sartre).
• This metaphor affirms that being seen validates existence: “Literature is most vivid when it is watched.” (p. 43)

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🧪 8. Metaphor as Tool for Historical and Literary Criticism

🔬 “The radical metaphor is the lens which creates the contemporary perspective we otherwise will lack.” (p. 47)

• Metaphor bridges the divide between history and literature, enabling empathic understanding and moral abstraction.
• Concludes with a call for critics to embrace metaphor as both method and insight in reading literature and culture.

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✨ Conclusion

Kaufmann’s essay reclaims metaphor as the central organizing principle in literature, history, psychology, and cultural life. Rather than a secondary ornament, metaphor is foundational: it creates meaning, reveals hidden structures, and offers shared frames of understanding.

🪞 “The point of original incandescence for a work of art is its first pregnant and often unexpressed metaphor; the rest is second-order elaboration.” (p. 47)

🔁 1. Repositions Metaphor as Central to Meaning-Making

• Contribution: Moves metaphor from rhetorical ornament to a constitutive force in literature and culture.
• Kaufmann asserts metaphor is a tool of cognitive and cultural formation, not just literary decoration.
• 📌 “Human use of metaphor is often constitutive… metaphorical stipulations establish the imaginative matrix for human growth.” (p. 33)

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🧠 2. Introduces the Concept of Radical Metaphor

• Contribution: Defines radical metaphor as the unspoken core metaphor organizing a literary work’s structure and values.
• Helps critics understand works like Utopia and Othello through their submerged metaphorical logic.
• 📌 “The point of original incandescence for a work of art is its first pregnant and often unexpressed metaphor.” (p. 47)

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🧭 3. Bridges Literary and Historical Analysis

• Contribution: Shows how metaphor links individual perception with historical context, enabling interdisciplinary critical methods.
• Encourages integration of cultural history and formal analysis.
• 📌 “Metaphorical habits betray the social compass of the thinker-artist’s basic position.” (p. 37)

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👁️ 4. Frames Metaphor as a Normative and Pedagogical Tool

• Contribution: Positions metaphor as a mechanism by which cultures teach, regulate, and normalize behavior.
• Connects metaphor to education, moral formation, and ideology.
• 📌 “Metaphor functions as a great type of normative device… creating and sustaining patterns of meaning.” (p. 38)

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🧱 5. Critiques the Limits of New Criticism

• Contribution: Challenges New Criticism’s focus on close reading by advocating for macro-level metaphorical analysis.
• Emphasizes engagement with texts beyond formal structure, addressing existential and cultural questions.
• 📌 “New Criticism… created a useful technology… but… its polemics became confused with a general description of the whole critical act.” (p. 31)

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🔬 6. Develops a Theory of Literary Cognition

• Contribution: Describes metaphor as a cognitive structure influencing how humans categorize and process experience.
• Anticipates contemporary work in cognitive poetics and conceptual metaphor theory.
• 📌 “Metaphor simplifies what would otherwise be too complex to evoke a normative response.” (p. 42)

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🔄 7. Challenges Traditional Classifications of Literary Genre

• Contribution: Warns against limiting texts by genre; instead, he urges readers to follow the metaphorical logic that governs a work’s deeper purpose.
• 📌 “There is no important purpose served by mere categorization in the handling of a text of sufficient imaginative force.” (p. 33)

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🧬 8. Introduces Metaphor as Diagnostic Method

• Contribution: Encourages using metaphor as a diagnostic tool to probe the psyche, ideology, and historical position of a text or author.
• 📌 “Kafka’s ominous simplicity… calls the normal operations of metaphor into question.” (p. 38)

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🧪 9. Equates Metaphor with Ethical and Existential Inquiry

• Contribution: Suggests metaphor reveals the moral structure of characters and cultures.
• Offers a way to read literature ethically without moralizing.
• 📌 “Metaphor defines relevant but denied components in the complex self through affective simplification.” (p. 44)

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🔄 10. Sets Foundations for Metaphor as Cultural Symbol

• Contribution: Establishes the notion that cultural metaphors like “God is an eye” or “life is a journey” underpin not just texts but civilizational systems.
• 📌 “Culturally determining metaphors… act as a means of self-definition… and cannot easily be discarded.” (p. 47)

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🔚 Conclusion:

Kaufmann’s essay reshapes literary theory by positioning metaphor at the heart of interpretation, ethics, history, and pedagogy. His insights anticipate modern interdisciplinary approaches and enrich our understanding of how literature functions as a social, psychological, and philosophical enterprise.

🎯 Too Broad a Definition of Metaphor

• Kaufmann stretches the definition of metaphor to include nearly all forms of meaning-making.
• 🟣 Critique: This over-expansion risks making metaphor analytically meaningless by encompassing everything from theology to cognition.
• 🔍 “Most non-analytical propositions… could be fruitfully considered as metaphor.” (p. 38)

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🧱 Neglects Materialist or Socioeconomic Criticism

• 🟥 Critique: The essay downplays or bypasses economic, class-based, and materialist dimensions of literary production and reception.
• Lacks engagement with Marxist, feminist, or postcolonial readings that would challenge the universality of metaphor.

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🔍 Selective Canon Focus

• 🟡 Critique: The examples (More, Kant, Pascal, Shakespeare, Kafka) reflect a Eurocentric and male-dominated canon, limiting the application of his theory across more diverse literatures.
• Absence of non-Western or female voices weakens claims to metaphor as a culturally general process.

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🌀 Ambiguity Between Philosophy and Literary Criticism

• 🟠 Critique: Kaufmann often blurs philosophical discourse and literary analysis, making some passages dense and abstract for literary scholars.
• His essay reads at times more like intellectual history than literary criticism.

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🧭 Implied Hierarchy of Literary Value

• 🔵 Critique: Kaufmann implicitly favors works that fit his model of “radical metaphor,” potentially excluding valuable texts that are imagistic, nonlinear, or non-didactic.
• Dismisses imagism as artistically inferior: “Imagism… tends to run into the sands of dadaism and other varied forms of artistic solipsism.” (p. 39)

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🔒 Metaphor as Ideological Lock-In

• 🟤 Critique: While claiming metaphor liberates thought, Kaufmann also suggests it fixes meaning and represses alternatives.
• This tension (metaphor as both freedom and repression) is underdeveloped and theoretically unstable.

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🕵️ Lack of Methodological Transparency

• ⚫ Critique: The essay is rich in insight but lacks clear method—readers may struggle to replicate or apply Kaufmann’s analysis systematically.
• His own metaphorical approach avoids technical formalism, which may hinder pedagogical clarity.

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🧬 Absence of Reader Response Consideration

• 🟠 Critique: The essay assumes metaphor operates objectively within texts without acknowledging reader variability or interpretive diversity.
• No discussion of how metaphor may be differently activated across cultural or temporal contexts.