Metaphoric Criticism Essay

Metaphoric Criticism

Metaphors are everywhere. Every story that we read, speech that we hear, even images can be used as metaphors to bring about meaning. They are used in everyday conversations, and are visual tools that give our listeners a better understanding of our intended meaning. Metaphoric criticism is a critiquing method that attempts to gain a greater understanding of the metaphors used within an artifact, and therefore attain a better perception of the author or orators intended meaning.
Analyzing an artifact using the metaphoric form of criticism includes for processes. The first step is to examine the artifact as a whole. What this really means is to take a step back, and try to gain a sense of the complete experience of the artifact. By doing this, you
Information about the context of the artifact can be gathered in many ways, including the audience’s reactions to the artifact, historical treatments of the context, and precious essays of criticism on the artifact. The second step to analyzing the artifact is isolating the metaphors. This just means to focusing on particular vehicles or tenors used within the artifact. At the end of this part of the process, the critic has reduced the text of the artifact to an abridged version of metaphors and brief descriptions of their context. The third step is to sort the metaphors so that the critic can look for patterns in metaphor use. The fourth and final step of the process is to analyze the metaphors. Here, the critic proposes what effects the use of the various