Metaphorical Content Research Articles

Designing emotional, metaphoric, natural and intuitive interfaces for interactive art, edutainment and mobile communications

We are artists working since 1991 on the creation of interactive computer installations for which we design metaphoric, emotional, natural, intuitive and multi-modal interfaces. The interactive experiences we create are situated between art, design, entertainment and edutainment. When creating our interactive systems we often develop novel interface technologies that match conceptual and metaphoric content with technically novel interface solutions. While our main focus is to design interactive systems for the art context, our interactive or immersive systems also often find use in edutainment and in mobile communications areas. The following article summarizes some of our key concepts for our interface designs and presents some of our interactive technologies in more detail.

Metaphoric Description and Individualized Emotion Profiling of Performance States in Top Karate Athletes

This paper reports an investigation extending recent studies of a symbolic representation of performance related states (Hanin, 1997, 2000; Hanin & Stambulova, 2002). Consistent with this theoretical framework, the content and frequency of self-generated metaphors with accompanying interpretative descriptors of feeling states in high-level Spanish karate athletes (N = 16; 12 men and 4 women) were examined. The athletes generated 98 idiosyncratic, symbolic, and functionally meaningful metaphors and 167 interpretative descriptors of feeling states prior to, during, and after their best and worst performances. The metaphoric images included animate (animals, human beings, mythical characters) and inanimate (vehicles, objects, plants, natural phenomena) agents. As predicted, the content of metaphors and interpretative descriptors reflected high action readiness in best performance and low action readiness in worst performance situations. Moreover, content of metaphors was different prior to, during, and after performances (content overlap ranged from 0.06 to 0.15) and across best and worst competitions (from 0 to 0.18). As expected, self-generated interpretative emotion descriptors were idiosyncratic and context-specific. These descriptors were similar to eight basic emotions (happiness, pride, relief, anger, anxiety, fright, sadness, and shame) from the 15 proposed by Lazarus (2000). Interpretative descriptors had multiple connotations with emotion and non-emotion components of psychobiosocial state. In the follow-up (n = 12) after a 5-month interval, the initially generated idiosyncratic metaphors were retained, thus, reflecting stability and consistency of perceived personal meaning of the situation. The findings are contrasted with earlier research and practical implications are suggested.

They Go Along Singing: Reconstructing the Hopi Past from Ritual Metaphors in Song and Image

This article demonstrates how the cosmological metaphors in ritual song texts are an important but unrecognized resource in the repertoire of oral tradition that can be used to reconstruct past lifeways. We test this proposition with a study of 125 Hopi katsina song texts from the 20th century and show how the cosmological principles underlying the Hopi lifeway are embedded in special song word and phrase metaphors. Through the transcription and translation of the content of these song metaphors we reveal a consistency of thought and prescribed social action that has sustained the Hopi people as they have followed a lifeway of corn agriculture done by hand. We then show how these same principles for living expressed metaphorically in words are visually repeated in the same metaphors in mural images on 15th- and 16th-century kiva murals from the Hopi sites of Awatovi and Kawaika'a as well as on associated Jeddito and Sikyatki yellow ware ceramic design.

Patmore, Pascal, and Astronomy

IN THE VICTORIES OF LOVE, WRITTEN THREE YEARS BEFORE PATMORE'S 1864 conversion to Catholicism in Rome, extended astronomical metaphors begin to appear with such frequency in his poetry that one might consider later Patmore rival of Tennyson as Victorian poet who demonstrates greatest knowledge of contemporary astronomy. (1) What could have prompted such an emphasis? I contend that Patmore shortly before and after his conversion to Catholicism grapples with legacy of great Jansenist Catholic writer, Blaise Pascal, whose Pensees we know Patmore read2 and he conspicuously imitated in his late collection of apothegms, Dicta, from The Rod, The Root, and The Flower (1895). Pascal employs astronomical references to express feelings of dread, terror, and alienation. For him, heavenly cosmos does not affirm God's existence, but instead reveals an immense abyss from He is absent or hidden: eternal silence of these infinite spaces fills me with (3) For Patmore, dominant focus of his post-conversion poetry, specifically The Unknown Eros (1877), is nuptial metaphor for basic relationship with God, with universe, and with his fellow human beings. (4) Patmore, unlike Pascal, assumes benign, eroticized universe in sexuality, rather than evidence of sinful concupiscence, is preparation and model for reciprocal desires linking man and God. My argument is that for Patmore, astronomical metaphor is site in he enacts his quarrel with Pascal, site of differentiation of importance, given Pascal's eminence as Catholic apologist and thinker. I shall also argue that Patmore's astronomical metaphors demonstrate close acqua intance with Sir John Herschel's Outlines of Astronomy, was published in five editions between 1849 and 1866 and which for decades was deemed most authoritative astronomy text in English. (5) A close examination of content and language of Patmore's astronomical metaphors and relevant corresponding passages in Herschel's Outlines suggests that it was Herschel's book that enabled Patmore to contend with Pascal's astronomy of dread. (6) For Pascal human condition is one of inconstancy, boredom, anxiety (24:36). Man exists in a state of corruption and sin; fallen from his first state, he become like beasts (131:66). For Pascal Christianity is strange; it man to recognize that he is vile, and even abominable, and bids him want to be like God (351:133). How different is tenor of Patmore's apothegms from his Aurea Dicta; for example, if you wish to influence world for good, leave it, forget it and think of nothing but your own interest, (7) or the power of soul for good is in proportion to strength of its passion. Sanctity is not negation of passion, but its order (The Rod, p. 51). Whereas Pascal's Pensees seemed to Pater the utterance of soul diseased, soul permanently ill at ease, (8) Patmore's Catholic writings are robust, affirmative, and, at times, healthy to excess. (9) As John Maynard has shown, for Patmore sexual desire is both source of man's humanity, essence of human na ture, and also connection to divine. (10) Patmore's first extended astronomical metaphor appears in epistolary Victories of Love (1863). Frederick Graham, in letter written to his mother from an inn at Plymouth, tells of his disappointed love for his cousin Honoria Churchill, who has become betrothed to Felix Vaughn, male protagonist of earlier Angel in House: Blest in her place, blissful is she; And I, departing, seem to be Like strange waif that comes to run A few days flaming near sun, And carries back, through night, Its lessening memory of light. (p. 220) (11) In this self-pitying metaphor, Frederick compares himself to comet that, as it approaches sun (Honoria), is for brief period illuminated before passing into boundless night. …

“Idea hamsters” on the “bleeding edge”: profane metaphors in high technology jargon

Neo-Durkheimian studies of the culture of high technology have looked for, and found, evidence of technological products being portrayed as sacred, as pure and elevated above mundane human concerns. This tradition of cultural analysis of technology has followed Durkheim's lead (Durkheim, Emile 1965 [1915]. The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life. Free Press, New York) in emphasizing the sacred while eliding its opposite, the profane. In this paper I contend that symbols of the profane continue to be powerful cultural elements that animate and order modern discourses and moral worlds, and that scholarly understanding of the culture of high technology can be enriched through analysis of profane symbols. I demonstrate this through metaphoric content analysis of the jargon of American high technology industry from the 1960s through the late 1990s, and show that (1) profane metaphors are widespread in high technology jargon as compared to the jargons of other occupations; (2) profane metaphors in high tech jargon have increased over the last three decades with the growth of high tech industry; and (3) these profane metaphors are thematically ordered, such that they tend to signify threats to technological progress, while technology itself is signified through morally benign metaphors. I argue that these metaphors have proliferated in high technology industry, and much less so in other occupations, because they buttress a moral worldview that makes technological innovations meaningful to their creators. For cultural analysis, these findings point to the value of examining metaphors sociologically, and of examining the social use of profane symbols in modern discourses in which the experience of the sacred is ambiguous or individualized.

Metaphor in Context (review)

Reviewed by: Metaphor in context by Josef Stern Amy Dunham Strand Metaphor in context. By Josef Stern. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2000. Pp. 385. Within the past few decades, writing on metaphor has grown substantially, with contributions from philosophers, literary critics, linguists, and cognitive scientists. Yet the bulk of these scholars situate metaphor within pragmatics, somewhere outside classical semantics, or beyond the scope of any theoretical explanation, whether pragmatic or semantic. Josef Stern’s account instead locates metaphor in relation to current semantics. Focusing on metaphorical interpretation rather than recognition, he claims that an essential part of our knowledge of metaphor lies within our general semantic competence, although contextual knowledge is also necessary; he thus views metaphorical interpretation as context-dependent, but not to the extent that it is completely idiosyncratic or that it renders semantic theory irrelevant. Metaphor’s context-dependence, S explains, actually highlights the proper role of semantic knowledge as knowledge of constraints. As such, readers interested in metaphor, semantics, or both will find S’s theory compelling. In the first three chapters, S provides the background necessary for the rich elaboration of his ideas in Chs. 4–8. Ch. 1, ‘Metaphorical competence’ (1–31), introduces his argument and describes the various relationships between knowledge and metaphor drawn upon throughout the book: knowledge that metaphor, knowledge of metaphor, and knowledge by metaphor. It also clarifies the three distinct terms on which S’s argument rests—metaphorical character, content, and context. Ch. 2, ‘From metaphorical use to metaphorical meaning’ (33–75), examines pragmatic or use theories of metaphor. Specifically, S complicates Donald Davidson’s influential use-based, truth-theoretic semantic treatment of context-dependence to frame his later reliance upon David Kaplan’s semantic framework. Ch. 3, ‘Themes from demonstratives’ (77–104), explicates Kaplan’s work on demonstratives and indexicals, attending especially to Kaplan’s distinction between character and content and his invention of the ‘Dthat’ operator on which S models the semantic context-dependency of metaphor. Ch. 4, ‘Knowledge of metaphor’ (105–43), elaborates S’s conception of ‘Mthat’ and works out the key theoretical notions that constitute the semantic competence enabling us to interpret a metaphor as a kind of context-dependent interpretation of an expression. Here, S explains context as a contextually-situated set of presuppositions and metaphorical character as that semantic rule that determines a metaphor’s content or interpretation in each context. Thus the schematic knowledge of the meaning of a metaphor is an interpretive skill. Concentrating on metaphors of exemplification to further illustrate metaphor’s schematic nature, Ch. 5, ‘Knowledge by metaphorical content’ (146–96), discusses how we apply our semantic competence in metaphor to specific, extralinguistic contexts to generate the specific content of a metaphor. It thus addresses in greater [End Page 789] detail one of the ways knowledge is conveyed by metaphor and illustrates how semantic structure constrains metaphorical interpretations. This chapter also contrasts S’s account of metaphor networks with others’ accounts, among them George Lakoff’s, Mark Johnson’s, and Mark Turner’s theory of conceptual or conventional metaphor. Ch. 6, ‘Metaphorical character and metaphorical meaning’ (197–257), describes more precisely ‘what we know when we know the meaning of a metaphor’ (197). Moreover, this chapter addresses relevant areas like metaphorical incompetence, interpretation vs. evaluation of metaphor, the relation of metaphor to indirect speech acts, and the relation of metaphor to other tropes. One of the most thought-provoking chapters, Ch. 7, ‘Knowledge by metaphorical character’ 260–99), elaborates on how the semantic competence that allows for metaphorical interpretation is also what allows the expression of ‘knowledge by the metaphor that is not equivalently expressible except through its metaphorical mode of expression’ (261). This theme of knowledge by metaphor relates to several issues debated in metaphor literature and addressed by S: the literal paraphrasability of metaphor, the cognitive significance of metaphor, the indeterminacy or ‘endlessness’ of metaphorical interpretation, the surprise effected by metaphor, and metaphor’s pictorial (vs. descriptive) aspects. S’s discussion in Ch. 8, ‘From the metaphorical to the literal’ (302–19), takes up two main areas related to metaphorical interpretation—the range of symbols that can be interpreted metaphorically (e.g. nonlinguistic metaphors) and the...

Metaphor, Indeterminacy, and Intention

David Cooper has argued that any acceptable theory of metaphor should account for ‘indeterminacy’: the sense that many metaphors admit of multiple acceptable interpretations, none of which can be uniquely demonstrated to be correct. He further argues that the ‘speaker's meaning’ model of metaphorical content cannot meet this constraint and, thus, should be rejected. In this paper I argue that Cooper's characterization of the proposed constraint is imprecise as stated and give my own characterization of the problem. There is a general tension between the authority granted to first‐person ascriptions of intentions and facts concerning the phenomenology of metaphor production, given that it seems to misrepresent the latter to ascribe to the speaker special access to a cognitive content, which their metaphorical utterance then expresses. I argue that one way of resolving this tension is by following Crispin Wright in viewing facts about intention as essentially response dependent.

Postcolonial Theory and Criticism

Postcolonial Theory and Criticism. Ed. by Laura Chrisman and Benita Parry for the English Association. Cambridge: Brewer. 2000. xi + 156 pp. 30 [pounds sterling]; $55. These seven essays, four on theory and method, three applying critical analysis to writers from the late nineteenth and late twentieth centuries, mark yet more additions to the ongoing soul-searching that has characterized postcolonial studies for the last decade at least. There is no such thing as a content postcolonialist these days it seems, other than possibly the figure who dissects the poverty of postcolonial critical approaches, to then collapse having justified why further analysis would be simply too much. Such concerns are legitimate of course. The heady rise of postcolonial studies in the last twenty years has undoubtedly been marked by analytical strategies guilty of neglecting key specifics of postcolonial praxis. Nevertheless, this emphasis on method has led to a considerable period in which much of the high-profile publishing on the subject has revolved around discussions of how best to approach the varying texts of the postcolonial. So when, in their introduction to this volume, Laura Chrisman and Benita Parry point out that postcolonial cultural studies have often adopted a culturalist approach that `bypasses a consideration of material conditions' (p. vii), they are reiterating an orthodoxy that has prevailed since the publication of a number of key interrogatory articles in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Chrisman and Parry must be congratulated for organizing a text that attempts to be more than only diagnostic. The essays on Kipling by Tim Watson, on Jack London and Robert Louis Stevenson by Lawrence Phillips, and on Hanif Kureishi by Sukhdev Sandhu, are placed to work off the theoretical considerations of Vilashini Cooppan, Fernando Coronil, Gautam Premnath, and Ato Quayson that precede them. In truth, these later essays are the weakest part of the collection. Sandhu's somewhat swaggering account of Kureishi is idiosyncratic, but both Watson and Phillips struggle with the critical shape of their argument. Watson's account of Indian and Irish inflections in Kim contains the sort of historical and material detail Chrisman and Parry call for in their introduction, yet Watson's conclusion that Kipling's novel provides a `new fictive unity' for Empire, even as that unity accelerates `the pace at which the Empire helps to produce its own demise' (p. 111), is simply too critically neat. Phillips's examination of autobiography and illness in the nineteenth-century Pacific chooses a focus on what he terms the `seemingly chaotic sensual reality' (p. 119) of Stevenson's and London's travels. In fact, Phillips finds his texts perfectly free from chaos in marshalling his critical argument. Criticizing Rod Edmond's Representing the South Pacific (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997) for over-reading illness in the Pacific for its metaphoric content, Phillips contends such metaphors should be seen as `sites of discursive interchange' (p. …

A fresh look

The study of speech-gesture-thought co-production serves multiple purposes, providing deep insight into many areas of investigation that go from psycholinguistics and cognitive linguistics to discourse analysis, and to the neuroscience of motor action and language. In this piece, building on my previous work (with George Lakoff) on the cognitive science of mathematics (Lakoff & Nunez, 1997, 2000; Nunez & Lakoff, 1998, 2005), I focus on the study of gesture production in order to address the question of the nature of mathematics and its foundations. I analyze (gestural) convergent evidence of the psychological reality of fundamental conceptual metaphors that we claim make infinitesimal calculus possible (in particular, what concerns limits and continuity). These conceptual metaphors, which are analyzed in detail in Where mathematics comes from (Lakoff & Nunez, 2000), emerge from fundamental mechanisms of everyday human imagination, language, and cognition, and structure the inferential organization of mathematical concepts and ideas. In this chapter, I show how the study of the gesture production of professional mathematicians turns out to be crucial in characterizing (in real-time) fundamental metaphorical contents that, while making the very mathematical ideas possible, are not captured by the standard well-accepted formalisms that are taken to “define” what mathematical concepts really are.

Music in the Inferno of the Nazi Terror: Jewish Composers in the "Third Reich"

In November 1933, the music association of the German Reich, the Reichsmusikkammer, was founded. Jewish musicians were refused membership and were banned from the profession. Some eminent Jewish composers were deported to Terezin, a concentration camp near Prague, where they developed a rich and unique cultural life. While the Nazis used Terezin for propagandistic purposes, the prisoners could find there a temporary relief from the horrible daily life and a way to preserve human dignity. Like most of the Jewish composers in Central Europe, the Terezin composers were not much aware of their Jewish identity prior to their persecution. However, the restrictive measures of the Nazis led to a separate, artificially concentrated Jewish musical culture. While the musical language of these composers before and during the Terezin years remained unchanged, the experience in the camp molded their works in a different way-the symbolic and metaphoric content and the emotional expression of those works were greatly stimulated by the impressions of this horrible experience. Over 50 years after the destruction of the German-Jewish symbiosis, a posthumous chapter is to be added. The new German generation shows a strong interest in the investigation and revival of the exterminated Jewish culture.

The effect of metaphor on processing style in a persuasion task: A motivational resonance model.

Previous research on metaphor and persuasion has suggested that metaphorical language elicits an assimilation effect wherein positive metaphors elicit positive attitudes toward the communication topic and negative metaphors elicit negative evaluations. The authors of this article propose that metaphorical content can increase or decrease motivation to systematicall y scrutinize a persuasive communication depending on the extent to which it resonates with the listener's preferences and interests. Consistent with this model, 2 experiments demonstrate that a sports metaphor increases message-relevant elaboration and sensitivity to argument strength among individuals who enjoy sports. Conversely, the sports metaphor reduces message-relevant elaboration and sensitivity to argument strength among individuals who dislike sports. Findings are discussed in the context of related research that suggests metaphor can serve alternative functions in a persuasive communication task.

Pictorial Metaphors: A Reply to Sedivy

This article is concerned with the question of whether, and to what extent, the concept of metaphor properly applies to pictures (e.g., paintings or photographs). The question is approached dialectically through an examination of the views of Sonia Sedivy, who advances the following 4 claims: (a) that pictures possess propositional content, (b) that there are metaphoric pictures, (c) that metaphoric pictures do not possess metaphoric content, and (d) that there can be no theory of pictorial metaphor. Although the first of Sedivy's claims is rejected in this article, the existence of pictorial metaphors is not denied. Thus, the fact that pictures do not possess propositional content does not preclude the possibility of pictorial metaphors. What are required, though, are changes to the conception of pictorial metaphor that Sedivy advances.

Myocardial infarction patients' use of metaphors to share meaning and communicate underlying frames of experience.

The onset of a myocardial infarction (MI) is frequently associated with distinct sensations that may shape the personal meaning of the MI illness experience. Although highly important, patients may have difficulty communicating the personal meaning of the MI illness experience because of lack of congruence between the clinician's and patient's frames of experience. The frame of experience defines the context and agenda for encounters from each participant's perspective. This secondary analysis of data explored MI patients' use of metaphorical language to convey aspects of their underlying frame of experience. Specifically, this paper addressed (a) the structural and linguistic features of metaphorical language used by patients to describe MI pain, (b) the content and structure of associated patient metaphors, and (c) the similarities and differences between the content of patient metaphors and descriptions of MI pain. Our findings confirm that even in encounters characterized by clinician imposition of an organizing framework upon the patient encounter, patients use metaphors to reveal their underlying frame of experience and aspects of the personal meaning of the MI illness experience. Furthermore, although non-metaphorical descriptions provide insights into the patients' cognitive understanding of events associated with the MI, metaphorical descriptions are particularly helpful in eliciting aspects of the affective response to the MI.

Metaphoric Pictures, Pulsars, Platypuses

In this article I argue that there are metaphoric pictures and that pictures have propositional content; but, I also argue, it does not follow that metaphoric pictures are to be explained in terms of metaphoric content. I develop a "comparison" or "predication" approach that stresses that metaphoric pictures depend on their use in contexts that invoke relevant background knowledge. Our competence with metaphoric pictures is a nonsystematic, nonspecifiable competence because it consists in our ability to harness any variety of relevant background knowledge on the basis of contextual factors. It follows that insofar as our competence is not systematic, it is not possible to have a theory of metaphoric pictures, in the sense of a systematic specification of the types of factors or principles that allow one to grasp that a picture is metaphoric and what the metaphor is.

Personality through metaphor: Optimism, pessimism, locus of control, and sensation seeking

In two experiments, several personality attributes evident in metaphors people use to describe everyday experiences were examined. Subjects either generated (Experiment 1) or endorsed (Experiment 2) a metaphor that represented their views about six facets of their lives (e.g., work, relationships, graduating). In self-generated metaphors, content analyses of the metaphors revealed that attributes of optimism (e.g., looking forward to the future) and pessimism (e.g., cynicism) were significant components of metaphor content. Also, modest relationships were found between the themes of optimism contained within their metaphors and scores on an optimism scale of a questionnaire designed to evaluate the optimistic and pessimistic orientations. In a second study, subjects endorsed how strongly preselected metaphors represented important aspects of their lives. These preferences were significantly related to their scores on an optimism/pessimism instrument and a locus of control inventory. These results support the notion that metaphors, like other creative productions, may prove a useful vehicle for studying personality characteristics. They also provide evidence for the construct validity of the optimism and pessimism questionnaire.

Marital group metaphors: Significance in the life stages of group development

Metaphorical content is abundant in the therapeutic process and has been noted and utilized in a variety of ways and settings by clinicians in the field. This paper focuses on metaphorical content in a marital therapy group and relates group metaphors to the life stages of group development. The co-authors illustrate the use of metaphors to assess the developmental stage of the group and to assist the therapist(s) in leading the group toward further growth and development. Figures are utilized to display the occurrence of metaphors by group stage, and a case example of a frequently stated group metaphor is offered to illustrate this process.

Qualitative age differences in memory for text: A life-span developmental perspective.

Qualitative differences in memory for text among 4 age groups (mean ages = 14.14, 17.55, 48.35, and 67.12 years) were examined in this study. Participants produced written recall and summary responses after presentation of a story and an essay. The response protocols were scored for their reproductive, elaborative, and metaphoric content. Age-group differences were observed in the quality of the responses. In general, the adolescent recall and summary responses were reproductive and text based, whereas the adult responses were more reconstructive and interpretive. Age-group differences were especially apparent in the story condition: The adolescents recalled and summarized the story's propositional content, whereas many of the adults recalled and summarized the story's psychological and metaphoric meanings as well. Individual difference variables accounted for much of the age-related variability in the essay but not in the story responses.

When the Theater Turns to Itself: The Aesthetic Metaphor in Shakespeare by Sidney Homan

perhaps REED can ultimately supply the required bibliographical support as well. 84 Comparative Drama ALAN H. NELSON University of California, Berkeley Sidney Homan. When the Theater Turns to Itself: The Aesthetic Meta­ phor in Shakespeare. Lewisburg, Pa.: Bucknell University Press, 1981. Pp. 238. $19.50. Sidney Homan looks at nine Shakespearean plays in order to dem­ onstrate the way in which they use the theater as “aesthetic metaphor.” From the early plays to the late ones, he sees a progression in Shake­ speare’s use of metaphors relating to theatrical art. In the first stage of his treatment of aesthetic metaphor, Homan examines early plays to discover the “relationship between the ‘worlds’ offstage and onstage” (p. 23). His introductory essay on The Taming of the Shrew stresses the parallels between Sly and the Lord in the Induction and Kate and Petruchio in the world of Padua. He concludes that this play “tells us about the power of the playwright-director to make the audience and actors cross the line between this world and the theater and about why we profit from that journey” (p. 53). In the other chapters grouped under his first stage, he shows how the language of Love’s Labor’s Lost serves as an aesthetic metaphor and how Shakespeare’s emerging con­ cept of “controlling figures” is expressed in Midsummer Night’s Dream. In the second part of his study Professor Homan examines the con­ trolling figures, Iago in Othello, Rosalind in As You Like It, and Duke Vincentio in Measure for Measure. These characters, he says, through their management of the action, collaborate both with the playwright and the audience to shape the artistic worlds they inhabit. How they do that determines the aesthetic metaphoric content of these plays. In the third group of plays, Homan sees characters such as Hamlet, Cleopatra, and Prospero becoming the fulfillment of the author’s develop­ ing awareness of aesthetic metaphor. These three plays, he says, are “Shakespeare’s mature examination of the boundaries of art and the artist” (p. 178). In these plays we become aware of “those aesthetic principles that are the basis of his art” because Shakespeare’s metaphors that are bom of the theater “serve the outside reality as window and the reality of bis stage as mirror” (p. 211). Professor Homan’s work is largely free of pedantic pretense, but one could wish for a less strenuous stretching of these particular plays to fit his scheme. “Controlling figures” after all are present in nearly every play, for example, Mistress Ford and Mistress Page in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Maria in Twelfth Night, Edmund and Edgar in King Lear. Their exclusion in these works to form a pattern therefore seems some­ what arbitrary. WILLIAM M. JONES University of Missouri, Columbia ...

The Significance of the Name "Johannes" in Die Judenbuche

Annette von Droste-Hulshoff's novella Die Judenbuche is a work of realistic prose fiction which contains many symbolic elements. Among these are included the names of the hero and his double – Friedrich Mergel and Niemand. Scholarship has pointed to the use of the name Niemand as it contributes to the function of the double in the narrative. The present article's thesis is that the name Johannes is also of significance for the content of the story. The function of this name is elucidated through a discussion of central motifs and particularly of the levels on which the phenomenon of language – the spoken and written word – is employed in this novella. The name Johannes is significant, not on the level of the story's outward plot (as detective novel), but on that of its inner, metaphorical content. On this level the name suggests directly the divine as well as the earthly inheritance that each man carries within him.