Zinger, clunker, clanger, flunker
On two-point comparisons, and why we love them
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 9466552 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Joshua Landy (Comparative Literature, Stanford University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 64 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 563-584 |
| Publication date | 2024-08-06 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The British Journal of Aesthetics (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0007-0904 • E-ISSN: 1468-2842 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1093/aesthj/ayae004 |
| OpenAlex | W4401385422 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 12 |
According to a now-standard theory, “Juliet is the sun” is supposed to be a “pregnant” metaphor, ready at any moment to beget a sprawling heap of adorable semantic puppies. Its two parts—“Juliet” and “the sun”—ostensibly meet at a virtually endless number of points, and it’s allegedly illuminating, enjoyable, or at least interesting to sit there all day spelling them out. But what if none of that is true? What if, instead, a successful creative comparison tends to offer exactly two points of contact, the first of which makes it adequate, while the second gives it power? To put it metaphorically (as is only appropriate): such an image is neither an iceberg (à la Cavell) nor a simple triangle (à la Aristotle) but a tetrahedron, a muscle, a covalent bond. And the telos of such images isn’t to transmit additional information but intensify, or disorient, or even—surprisingly—make us feel at home in this miserable world
Algorithm · Epistemology · Geometry · Heap (data structure · Linguistics · Metaphor · Parallels · Point (geometry · Aesthetic Perception and Analysis · Computer Science · Engineering · Language, Metaphor, and Cognition · Mathematics · Philosophy
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |