theoryofliteratu00inwell

CHAPTER XV
Image, Metaphor, Symbol, Myth
When we turn from classifying poems by their subject matter
or themes to asking what kind of discourse poetry is, and when,
instead of prose-paraphrasing, we identify the "meaning" of a
poem with its whole complex of structures, we then encounter,
as central poetic structure, the sequence represented by the four
terms of our title. The two main organizing principles of poetry,
one of our contemporaries has said, are meter and metaphor j
moreover, "metre and metaphor 'belong together,' and our definition
of poetry will have to be general enough to include them
both and explain their companionship." * The general theory of
poetry implied by this statement was brilliantly expounded by
Coleridge in Biografhia Literaria.
Have we, in these four terms, a single referent? Semantically,
the terms overlap ; they clearly point to the same area of interest.
Perhaps our sequence—image, metaphor, symbol, and myth
may be said to represent the convergence of two lines, both im-
portant for the theory of poetry. One is sensuous particularity,
or the sensuous and aesthetic continuum, which connects poetry
with music and painting and disconnects it from philosophy and
science j the other is "figuration" or "tropology"—the "oblique"
discourse which speaks in metonyms and metaphors, partially
comparing worlds, precising its themes by giving them imprac-
tical translations into other idioms. 2
—
These are both characteris-
tics, differentiae, of literature, in contrast to scientific discourse.
Instead of aiming at a system of abstractions consistently ex-
pressed by a system of monosigns, poetry organizes a unique,
unrepeatable pattern of words, each an object as well as a sign
and used in a fashion unpredictable by any system outside of the
poem. 3
The semantic difficulties of our topic are troublesome, and no
ready relief seems possible beyond constant vigilant attention to
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