Emerson's English Traits and the Natural History of Metaphor |
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Author:
| LaRocca, David |
ISBN: | 978-1-4411-9317-9 |
Publication Date: | Nov 2013 |
Publisher: | Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
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Imprint: | Bloomsbury Academic |
Book Format: | Hardback |
List Price: | USD $120.00 |
Book Description:
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Metaphors are ubiquitous and yet--or, for that very reason--go largely unseen. We are all variously susceptible to a blindness or blurry vision of metaphors; yet even when they are seen clearly, we are left to situate the ambiguities, conflations and contradictions they regularly present--logically, aesthetically and morally.David LaRocca's book serves as a set of 'reminders' of certain features of the natural history of our language--especially the tropes that permeate and define it....
More DescriptionMetaphors are ubiquitous and yet--or, for that very reason--go largely unseen. We are all variously susceptible to a blindness or blurry vision of metaphors; yet even when they are seen clearly, we are left to situate the ambiguities, conflations and contradictions they regularly present--logically, aesthetically and morally.David LaRocca's book serves as a set of 'reminders' of certain features of the natural history of our language--especially the tropes that permeate and define it. As part of his investigation, LaRocca turns to Ralph Waldo Emerson's only book on a single topic, English Traits (1856), which teems with genealogical and generative metaphors--blood, birth, plants, parents, family, names and race.In the first book-length study of English Traits in over half a century, LaRocca considers the presence of metaphors in Emerson's fertile text--a unique work in his expansive corpus, and one that is regularly overlooked. As metaphors are encountered in Emerson's book, and drawn from a long history of usage in work by others, a reader may realize (or remember) what is inherent and encoded in our language, but rarely seen: how metaphors circulate in speech and through texts to become the lifeblood of thought.