“Metaphors for Public Opinion in Literature” by Kurt W. Back: Summary and Critique

🔹 Public Opinion as a Cultural and Structural Concept

• Public opinion is not purely theoretical but shaped by “the structure of the society in which it is stated” (p. 278).
• It can be “felt and perceived”—a real, collective experience influenced by differing social contexts.
• Survey methods, rooted in Western individualism, only reflect public opinion in individualistic societies and may “hinder a general definition of the concept” (p. 279).

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🔹 Metaphors Reveal the Social Construction of Public Opinion

• Back claims “any theory of public opinion can be seen as a metaphor for an experience” (p. 280).
• Even modern polling methods like adding individual survey responses are metaphorical: “adding up the data from individual interviews and calling them public opinion is also a metaphor” (p. 280).

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🔹 From Chorus to Individual: Collective Expression in Literature

• In ancient societies, the Greek chorus symbolized communal opinion: “the voice of the community” (p. 281).
• Over time, this unified voice weakened, representing a shift from social cohesion to individual agency.
• Example: In Peter Grimes, the chorus becomes a “malevolent force”, showing the pressure of public opinion against the individual (p. 282).

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🔹 Public Opinion as Divine and Dangerous (Virgil’s Rumor)

• In Aeneid, the Goddess Rumor is described with “eyes under every feather and tongues to match or exceed the eyes”—symbolizing omnipresent, fearsome public discourse (p. 283).
• Yet Rumor also carries divine will, underscoring the “ambivalence of public opinion as both destructive and enabling” (p. 283).

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🔹 Public Opinion and Political Leadership

• Monarchs in literature often gauge opinion through disguise (e.g., Shakespeare’s Henry V), showing how “early examples of public opinion research” were personal and anecdotal (p. 284).
• This method reflects a belief that “good leaders embody public opinion”, contrasting with modern surveys seen as artificial intrusions (p. 284).

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🔹 Mass Opinion and Manipulation

• In modernity, literature warns of public opinion as manipulable. Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar shows how “Mark Antony controls a crowd through rhetorical performance” (p. 284).
• Back sees this as a “malleable, but dangerous, mass”—manipulable by elites but not grounded in reasoned individual judgment (p. 284).

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🔹 The Revolutionary Mob and Elite Fear

• During and after the French Revolution, writers like Schiller were “torn between sympathy and fear of the masses” (p. 285).
• In The Lay of the Bell, Schiller warns: “Woe to him who lends heaven’s torch to the eternally blind populace” (lines 376–380), likening the masses to wild beasts and fire (p. 285).

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🔹 Emergence of the Individual and the Pollable Public

• The 19th century saw a shift from crowd to individual. Public opinion became internalized as “a force acting on the individual as a goad and restraint” (p. 286).
• Offenbach’s Orpheus in the Underworld personifies public opinion with a “torch in one hand, a whip in the other”—combining enlightenment and coercion (p. 286).

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🔹 Critique of Public Opinion Research and Democracy

• Modern fiction critiques polling as manipulation:
  • In The Man with My Face, villains try to “distort the sampling frame” (p. 286).
  • Gore Vidal’s The Weekend and Eugene Burdick’s The 480 and The Ninth Wave portray polls as tools for electoral control and deception (pp. 287–288).
• These reflect societal anxiety that “the benign as well as the threatening aspect of public opinion has been reduced to the sum of individual attitudes” (p. 287).

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🔹 Conclusion: Towards Broader Models and Metaphors

• Back argues for metaphor as a theoretical tool, proposing “a great common pool of oscillating opinions”—with surveys as mere “probes” in this social ocean (p. 288).
• The search for richer models, such as Noelle-Neumann’s Spiral of Silence, is ongoing because “the lack of an image transcending individual attitudes has frequently troubled researchers” (p. 288).

📚 1. Reader-Response Theory

• Contribution: The article emphasizes that public opinion is shaped by perception and experience, resonating with the reader-response focus on the interaction between text and audience.
• Reference: “Public opinion can be felt and perceived… Reports of this direct perception of social events differ by situation, by person, but especially by society” (p. 278).
• Implication: Literature functions not only as a reflection but as an interactional site where public sentiment is interpreted and shaped by readers and audiences over time.

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🌀 Metaphor Theory / Conceptual Metaphor Theory (Lakoff & Johnson)

• Contribution: Back positions metaphors not as mere rhetorical flourishes but as foundational structures of knowledge, aligning with conceptual metaphor theory.
• Reference: “Any theory of public opinion can be seen as a metaphor for an experience that cannot be expressed easily in words” (p. 280).
• Implication: Literature’s metaphors shape social understanding just as scientific models do—merging cognitive linguistics and literary theory.

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🏛️ New Historicism

• Contribution: Back traces how metaphors for public opinion evolve in literature across historical epochs, directly linking literary forms to sociopolitical contexts.
• Reference: The metaphor of the Greek chorus shows collective cohesion, while the Goddess Rumor in The Aeneid represents ambivalence toward mass discourse (pp. 281–283).
• Implication: Literature encodes public opinion not just narratively but historically, revealing ideological structures and shifts in power relations across time.

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🧠 Sociological Literary Theory (Sociology of Literature)

• Contribution: Back advocates literature as a diagnostic tool for the structure of society and collective experience—paralleling the view that literature reflects and helps constitute social life.
• Reference: “The treatment of public opinion in literature can be one such indicator” and “the distinction of major artists lies exactly in their extreme sensitivity to conditions of their society” (p. 279).
• Implication: This article grounds literary production in social reality and underscores the reciprocity between social forms and literary forms.

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🔍 Structuralism / Structuralist Semiotics

• Contribution: The paper indirectly employs structuralist methods by classifying metaphors (e.g., chorus, rumor, disguised king) according to underlying binary oppositions: collective vs. individual, truth vs. manipulation.
• Reference: Contrast between “unitary cohesion in a society” and “individual conscience and individual action” (p. 281).
• Implication: Back’s framework reveals the cultural logic (structure) behind different metaphorical representations of public opinion.

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🧍 Post-Structuralism / Deconstruction

• Contribution: The article implicitly destabilizes fixed meanings of public opinion, revealing its contextual, contradictory, and metaphorical nature.
• Reference: “Public opinion has been reduced to the sum of individual attitudes… but the idea that opinions can be characteristics of social units has not been completely abandoned” (p. 287).
• Implication: Encourages re-reading of “public opinion” as a fragmented, discursively constructed entity, echoing post-structuralist suspicion of stable referents.

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🗣️ Political Aesthetics / Critical Theory

• Contribution: Shows how literature stages conflicts between mass and elite, reason and manipulation, aligning with critical theory’s concern with ideology, hegemony, and control.
• Reference: Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar and Coriolanus expose “public opinion as a crowd affair… not consisting of individual thought-out positions” (p. 284).
• Implication: Literature not only reflects but interrogates the political functions of opinion and representation, echoing Adorno and Habermas.

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💬 Narrative Theory

• Contribution: Reveals how narrative structures—from epics to novels—function as vehicles for metaphorical expressions of collective sentiment.
• Reference: In The Man with My Face, narrative climax hinges on rescuing authentic public opinion from manipulative sampling (p. 286).
• Implication: Narratives embody and shape public consciousness; plot devices often encode ideological debates over truth, identity, and consensus.

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🔄 Reception and Cultural Studies

• Contribution: Highlights how cultural context and political systems influence both the production and reception of public opinion metaphors.
• Reference: “That public opinion research is an American product may be no coincidence”, in reference to McGranahan & Wayne’s comparative study (p. 283).
• Implication: Interpretation of literature is inseparable from national ideologies and media systems—core to cultural studies.

🎯 Overreliance on Western Canon

• Back focuses primarily on Western literary traditions (e.g., Greek drama, Shakespeare, Virgil, Dickens), potentially neglecting non-Western conceptions of public opinion.
• 🌍 Critique: This limits the universality of his argument and overlooks how public opinion is metaphorized in diverse global literatures.

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🧩 Ambiguity in Conceptual Boundaries

• While rich in metaphorical range, Back often blurs the lines between metaphor, theory, and empirical data.
• 🔍 Critique: This can create confusion: Is public opinion metaphorized or theorized? Are metaphors analytical tools or literary features?

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🧪 Lack of Empirical Validation

• The article offers anecdotal literary examples, but not systematic analysis or criteria for selecting or interpreting metaphors.
• 📉 Critique: The metaphors remain interpretive rather than rigorously analyzed, limiting the paper’s methodological robustness.

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📚 Sparse Engagement with Literary Theory

• While sociologically insightful, Back does not deeply engage with contemporary literary theories (e.g., structuralism, deconstruction, postcolonialism).
• 🧠 Critique: Literary scholars may find the analysis insufficiently grounded in critical theory discourse.

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🔄 Reinforcement of Binary Oppositions

• The paper often sets up simplistic binaries: individual vs. collective, elite vs. mass, positive vs. negative opinion.
• ⚖️ Critique: This can flatten the complexity of literary texts and ignore hybrid or ambiguous representations of public discourse.

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🎭 Underdeveloped Narrative Complexity

• The metaphors discussed are powerful, but Back rarely explores how narrative form, genre, or voice shape public opinion metaphors.
• 📖 Critique: A richer engagement with narrative strategies or dialogic form (e.g., Bakhtin’s heteroglossia) would strengthen the analysis.

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🚫 Dismissal of Contemporary Media Forms

• The article focuses on classical and modernist literature but largely ignores mass media, film, and digital narratives as vehicles of public opinion.
• 🎥 Critique: This omission weakens the relevance of his metaphors in the media-saturated public spheres of today.

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🧍‍♀️ Minimal Attention to Gendered Public Opinion

• Public opinion is treated as a largely ungendered force, despite literary examples (like A Tale of Two Cities) where women embody public voice.
• ♀️ Critique: Feminist critics may argue this is a missed opportunity to explore gendered constructions of the public sphere.