Composition's Misunderstanding of Metaphor

Abstract

One might expect that the field of composition, with its close ties to rhetorical studies, would provide a valuable contribution on the subject of metaphor-that figure of speech now widely recognized as a paradigmatic trope, an inescapable gesture of language. If metaphor plays a decisive role in the rhetorical stance and development of texts, then it should surely be an issue of significant concern to those of us involved in the study of writing. Especially during a period like the past decade, one in which speculation about metaphor has become a major preoccupation in the humanities, it would seem likely that in composition journals, conferences, and classrooms-even in handbooks that describe rhetorical terms for useful reference-various approaches to metaphor might reflect the provocative re-figuring that metaphor has recently undergone in disciplines such as philosophy and literary studies. What one mostly discovers, however, is that we remain bogged down in the murky waters of legislating a proper place for metaphor, a place where metaphor will not contaminate the supposed purity of literal language. Paradoxically, this attempt to cleanly divide the metaphorical from the literal results in a hopeless mess that no one can set straight. While the best work on metaphor has learned to accept the ubiquity of figuration, many of us in composition still seem to assume that metaphor can be regulated in a way that writers-in particular, student writers-can use it, so to speak, only when they need it.