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Abstract

The word metaphor is derived directly from a Greek word ‘µεταφέϱω’ which means ‘I carry across’. In English it signifies a linguistic process whereby the characteristics of one object are ‘carried across’ and applied to another, so that the second object is spoken of in terms of the first. Such stretched language is called figurative — language which does not mean what is says. (This should not be confused with the method of figural interpretation described in the previous chapter.)

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Reading List

  • *Terence Hawkes, Metaphor (London and New York: Methuen, 1972).

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© 1987 David Jasper

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Jasper, D. (1987). Imagination and Metaphor. In: The New Testament and the Literary Imagination. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-08535-4_3

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