Abstract
This is about metaphor, which is to say, about nothing, but nothing which is like something, or rather is something, “like” signalling a simile. Metaphor is the evocation of something, a step which makes us stumble towards something else, something which had not previously existed. A figure of speech, science fiction. The generation of “as” in the absence of “like,” conception in the death of meaning.
It is only the murder that is enjoyable, not the death... Jokes are ... an act of assassination without the corpse.
(Penelope Gilliat, To Wit)
Brilliantly re-created — if these eyes could weep!... Rather strong on metaphor, mind you. No criticism — only a matter of taste. And so here you are — with a vengeance. That’s a figure of speech ... isn’t it?
(Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead)
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Baum, R.K. (1998). Not Funny: Metaphor, Dream and Decapitation. In: Tymieniecka, AT. (eds) Enjoyment. Analecta Husserliana, vol 56. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-1425-9_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-1425-9_8
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