The history of metaphor

by Anna-Maria Brandstetter

There are two strands in the historically emerging use of metaphor: one follows the intention to be clear and unambiguous in communication, the other derives from the wish to be at crucial times not univocal but multivocal, ambiguous and evocative.
In my paper I want to explore these two strands in more detail, focusing particularly on the intention of multivocality. James Fernandez (1972, 1974) has shown how the 'mission of metaphor' is to move human beings effectively and affectively in the quality space of culture. In his contribution to the first Rhetoric Culture Conference Ivo Strecker has proposed to use the terms 'pathetic' and 'sympathetic' for the two parts of a metaphor, while reserving Ivor Richard's notion of 'tenor' for the resonant and tension producing co-presence of the two terms of a metaphor. My paper deals with this tension inherent in metaphor, and how it is dialectically related to tensions in social relations.
In the course of cultural history, metaphoric repertoires have emerged and passed, and the comparative study of metaphor aims at exploring these repertoires and how their sequence is related to social and cultural change. All metaphorical repertoires draw on both universal and historically and culturally specific reservoirs. My main concern will be with the latter, that is with the specific reservoirs and repertoires of gatherer-hunters, herders and agriculturalists.

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