Creative Metaphor - Definition and Examples

Creative Metaphor s A creative metaphor is an original comparison that calls attention to itself as a figure of speech. Also known as a  poetic metaphor, literary metaphor, novel metaphor, and unconventional metaphor.  Contrast with conventional metaphor  and dead metaphor.  American philosopher Richard Rorty characterized the creative metaphor as a challenge to established schemes and conventional perceptions: A metaphor is, so to speak, a voice from outside logical space. It is a call to change ones language and ones life, rather than a proposal about how to systematize them (Metaphor as the Growing Point of Language, 1991). Examples and Observations Her tall black-suited body seemed to carve its way through the crowded room.(Josephine Hart, Damage, 1991)Fear is a slinking cat I findBeneath the lilacs of my mind.(Sophie Tunnell, Fear)The apparition of these faces in the crowd;Petals on a wet, black bough.(Ezra Pound, In a Station of the Metro)Yeatss Dolphin-torn . . . SeaThose images that yetFresh images beget,That dolphin-torn, that gong-tormented sea.(W.B. Yeats, Byzantium)- Although this last line is acutely visual, its three main items, dolphin, gong and sea are as much literal as metaphoric elements of the scene: the poem had begun with the cathedral gong ringing out over the sea, and had gone on to speak of the dolphins in the waters around Byzantium. Of course, dolphin and gong also stand for something elsethe vitality of the living animal, the majesty and authority of religion over the spirit, but they do this primarily as images. Direct metaphor is reduced to a subordinate position here, in the words torn and tormented, since neither of them can literally be applied to water. The first very vividly catches the force with which the dolphin leaps from and returns to its elements. The second communicates the extent to which that element is troubled by the demands of the spiritual.(Stan Smith, W.B. Yeats: A Critical Introduction. Rowman Littlefield, 1990)- By using metaphors, much more can be conveyed, through implication and connotation, than through straightforward, literal  language. Take the case of . . . that literary metaphor dolphin-torn: what exactly is Yeats suggesting about the sea, and how else could this have been expressed? Just as writers convey meaning more open-endedly when they use metaphorical language, readers interpret less narrowly than they would literal language. So meaning is communicated between writer and reader in a less precise way, even though the metaphors may seem concrete and vivid. It is this imprecision, this fuzziness of meaning, which makes metaphor such a powerfu l tool in the communication of emotion, evaluation, and explanation too.(Murray Knowles and Rosamund Moon, Introducing Metaphor. Routledge, 2006) Creative Metaphors Outside LiteratureThe chaotic category creative metaphor includes typically literary examples such as novel metaphors and poetic metaphors. The crucial question is, however, whether it is possible to extend this category beyond literary examples. If this is possibleand an examination of the terms creative and creativity suggests that it isthen it will be possible to find many creative metaphors even in political discourse which is, actually, not very famous for being creative.(Ralph Mueller, Critical Metaphors of Creative Metaphors in Political Speeches. Researching and Applying Metaphor in the Real World, ed. by Graham Low, Zazie Todd, Alice Deignan, and Lynne Cameron. John Benjamins, 2010)Communicating Through Metaphors- Even though our individual stories are different, we communicate through the common language of metaphor by embodying our ideas in images and details. By ruminating upon ourselves, we also conjure stories of others. By this acknowledgment of othe rs experiences, we address a whole range of social, political, and cultural issues.Its impossible to live every life, fight every war, battle every illness, belong to every tribe, believe in every religion. The only way we come close to the whole experience is by embracing what we see both inside and outside the window of the page.(Sue William Silverman, Fearless Confessions: A Writers Guide to Memoir. University of Georgia Press, 2009)- The ground of appropriateness for a new insight provided by a creative metaphorthe compelling condition of the new similarity, what suggests that it fitscannot be restricted to a complex of established perspectives. For it is this complex, or some part of it, that is challenged by the new insight.(Carl R. Hausman, Metaphor and Art. Cambridge University Press, 1989)   See also: MetaphorLove Is a MetaphorThirteen Ways of Looking at a MetaphorUsing Similes and MetaphorsWhat Is a Metaphor?