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A Short History of Tropes

A Short History of Tropes. Metaphor, Metonomy , Synecdoche, Irony. Theory of Language . Plato Foundation of early Christian mysticism; includes theory of angels; resurgence in Renaissance. Aristotle Rediscovered through Arabic tradition in the 13 th century; inspired scholasticism.

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A Short History of Tropes

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  1. A Short History of Tropes Metaphor, Metonomy, Synecdoche, Irony

  2. Theory of Language • Plato • Foundation of early Christian mysticism; includes theory of angels; resurgence in Renaissance • Aristotle • Rediscovered through Arabic tradition in the 13th century; inspired scholasticism

  3. Classical cosmology Platonic theory of the Universe translated through Allegory. Aristotle’s theory emphasizes Logic, order, rationalism

  4. Confrontation with language • Plato leads to exegetics • Plato rejects literal force of language except as it impinges on unveiling the mystical • Aristotle leads to grammar and rhetoric • Theory of metaphor becomes a science

  5. Plato and the vernacular • Theory of Metaphor as part of the great chain of being • Integumenta • Veiled metaphors • Exegetics becomes applied to vernacular texts (e.g. Virgil’s Aeneid)

  6. Rose Window Window becomes the allegory of the universe

  7. Aristotle and Rhetoric • Develops a system of literary analysis • Explains and categorizes kinds of metaphors (tropes) • Development of semiotics and theory of understanding

  8. Medieval Literary Theory • Secular commentaries • Renewed interest in vernacular • Efforts to combine exegetics and logic • Vernacular authority

  9. Dante and Allegory • Divine Comedy • Vita Nuova • Convivio • De Monarchia • Letter to Can Grande • School of the stilnuovists • Hermetic nature of imagery and diction

  10. Figure of Beatrice as supreme metaphor • Complete identity between Beatrice and miraculous salvation • Perfect eloquence between thought, word, and BEING

  11. Literal Symbol • No reader can understand the identity, • Beatrice becomes metonomy to the reader

  12. Problem of movement between metaphor and metonomy Metaphor is identical Metanomy is partial

  13. Boccaccio • One of the greatest intellectual scholars of Europe • First Professor of Dante studies • Friend of Petrarch • Champion of Vernacular • Decameron • Genealogy Gentile Gods

  14. Critique and Admiration of Dante • Anxiety about mysticism in post plague world • Antifeminism • More Ovidian than Virgilian • History and Ethical burdens of literature • Different vision for vernacular

  15. Vico and the Enlightenment • Developed system of trope, expanded by Kenneth Burke • Metaphor • Metonomy • Synecdoche • Irony • (Note Parallel to Plato’s Cosmology)

  16. Nineteenth Century • Rise of hermeneutics • Phenomenology • Aesthetics (from Kant) • William James • Schleimacher • Romanticism • Victorianism

  17. 20th Century Structuralism • New emphasis on anthropology and culture • Combines with phenomenology • Combines with “grammar” of literary theory (sounds like Aristotle) Levi-Strauss And Roland Barthes

  18. Formalism and New Criticism Bakhtin and Russian Formalism Eliot and New Criticism

  19. Psychoanalytic Criticism • Jung, Freud • Theory of Archetypes • Narrating Ego • Lacan, Kristeva

  20. Deconstruction • Yale School • Heidegger inspired • Derrida • DeMan • J. Hillis Miller • Geoffrey Hartman • Harold Bloom • Denies the stability of language and forces a reconsideration of all theories of literary language

  21. Destruction of Aesthetic and Ethical Values to literature • Reaction to Holocaust • Complicity with Nazi agenda discovered in late ’80’s • Descent into cultural studies (Foucault)

  22. Text as Trope: Allusion • Cultural appropriation e.g. Greek into Roman Ovid—Metamorphoses Virgil—Aeneid

  23. Virgil and Dante • Have mercy on me," cried I out aloud, "Spirit! or living man! whate'er thou be." He answered: "Now not man, man once I was, And born of Lombard parents, Mantuans both By country, when the power of Julius yet Was scarcely firm. At Rome my life was past, Beneath the mild Augustus, in the time Of fabled deities and false. A bard Was I, and made Anchises' upright son The subject of my song, who came from Troy, When the flames prey'd on Ilium's haughty towers.

  24. Dante and Virgil • "And art thou then that Virgil, that well - spring, From which such copious floods of eloquence Have issued?" I with front abash'd replied. "Glory and light of all the tuneful train! May it avail me, that I long with zeal Have sought thy volume, and with love immense Have conn'd it o'er. My master thou, and guide! Thou he from whom alone I have derived That style, which for its beauty into fame Exalts me. See the beast, from whom I fled.

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