The Motive for Metaphor
Northrop Frye
English language is used everywhere all over the world. It is a common language and one of the most spoken languages anywhere. Most of humanity reads books or articles on their free time and it is not a surprise that English speaking nations as well as others register books as well. The difference although, is that English speaking literature had the most significantly complex and celebrated poets, which is why people around the world, English speaking or not push to understand their poems and plays.
English as a mother tongue is directly related to English as a literature. It is related because as life progresses and as a human continues to study and speak the English language he/she will want to also read about it as well. Reading is a form of studying and literature is a form of expanding your mind to new ideas. Literature then becomes as a form of learning new ideas and expanding one’s thought process. While reading Shakespeare or Milton you might find yourself looking up hard words to understand, when not priorly being exposed to these words on a daily basis. Through learning these new words you begin to understand what imagination is and how to use it. Frye continues to tell us that the language of literature is our way of becoming a part of the world of imagination, or the world we would like to have and in turn this language helps us produce poetry, which directly connects us to other forms of art which is imagination as well. Frye teaches us that English language and the language of literature helps us bond closely our personal imagination and experience with that of the outside world, which is why he calls his book the motive for metaphor, because through this process we are using a metaphor to relate our experiences and imagination with the real world.
Studying literature is very important and provides humanity with an abundant amount of social value, intelligence and a better approach with dealing with everyday scenarios.
English language is used everywhere all over the world. It is a common language and one of the most spoken languages anywhere. Most of humanity reads books or articles on their free time and it is not a surprise that English speaking nations as well as others register books as well. The difference although, is that English speaking literature had the most significantly complex and celebrated poets, which is why people around the world, English speaking or not push to understand their poems and plays.
English as a mother tongue is directly related to English as a literature. It is related because as life progresses and as a human continues to study and speak the English language he/she will want to also read about it as well. Reading is a form of studying and literature is a form of expanding your mind to new ideas. Literature then becomes as a form of learning new ideas and expanding one’s thought process. While reading Shakespeare or Milton you might find yourself looking up hard words to understand, when not priorly being exposed to these words on a daily basis. Through learning these new words you begin to understand what imagination is and how to use it. Frye continues to tell us that the language of literature is our way of becoming a part of the world of imagination, or the world we would like to have and in turn this language helps us produce poetry, which directly connects us to other forms of art which is imagination as well. Frye teaches us that English language and the language of literature helps us bond closely our personal imagination and experience with that of the outside world, which is why he calls his book the motive for metaphor, because through this process we are using a metaphor to relate our experiences and imagination with the real world.
Studying literature is very important and provides humanity with an abundant amount of social value, intelligence and a better approach with dealing with everyday scenarios.
Citations: Study Guide for The Educated Imagination. (2010, December 4). Reading presented at Study Guide for The Educated Imagination in United States. Retrieved December 07, 2010, from http://www.u.arizona.edu/~willard/195b/studyguide.php3 The Motive for Metaphor. (2010). In M. G. Birchette, B. Braid, W. Burgos, A. J. DiMaio, & A. W. Grose (Eds.), The idea of the human: reading anthology (p. 305). [S.l.]: Copley Custom Textbooks. (Original work published 1964)