Ten Myths of Metaphor

Abstract

Only literal statements are true, according to this myth. All the rest distort and falsify. The poets (as Plato taught us) lie; only the scientists tell the truth. To describe an unreliable, cowardly, or sickly person as a is just to speak a falsehood, which becomes a truth through negation: obviously, the person referred to is not a reed. But it is obvious that he is not a only if weak reed is taken literally, for it is, indeed, obvious that no person is literally a reed, or otherwise. And it is utterly trivial to say that a metaphorical statement, taken literally, may be false. Taken metaphorically, however, the statement may well be true: he is indeed a reed, and it is false to deny that he is. To be sure, metaphorical assertions are eligible for falsehood. But they are, no more than literal assertions, always false.