The Relevance of Metaphor: Emily Dickinson, Elizabeth Bishop and Seamus Heaney

by Josie O'Donoghue

Overview

This book considers metaphor as a communicative phenomenon in the poetry of Emily Dickinson, Elizabeth Bishop and Seamus Heaney, in light of the relevance theory account of communication first developed by Dan Sperber and Deirdre Wilson in the 1980s. The first half of the book introduces relevance theory, situating it in relation to literary criticism, and then surveys the history of metaphor in literary studies and assesses relevance theory’s account of metaphor, including recent developments within the theory such as Robyn Carston’s notion of ‘the lingering of the literal’. The second half of the book considers the role of metaphor in the work of three nineteenth- and twentieth-century poets through the lens of three terms central to relevance theory: inference, implicature and mutual manifestness. The volume will be of interest to students and scholars working in literary studies, pragmatics and stylistics, as well as to relevance theorists.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783030839567
Publisher:	Springer International Publishing
Publication date:	11/30/2021
Edition description:	1st ed. 2021
Pages:	294
Product dimensions:	5.83(w) x 8.27(h) x 0.00(d)

About the Author

Josie O’Donoghue is a Research Fellow in English at Clare College, University of Cambridge, UK.

Table of Contents

Chapter1. Introduction: Communicating Metaphor.- Chapter 2. Relevance.- Chapter 3. Metaphor.- Chapter 4. The impossible metaphors: Inference in the poetry of Emily Dickinson.- Chapter 5. Things as they are: Implicature in the Poetry of Elizabeth Bishop.- Chapter 6. Mutual Manifestness in the Poetry of Seamus Heaney.- Chapter 7. Conclusion.