SOURCE: "Aristotle's Concept of Metaphor in Rhetoric," in Aristotle: The Classical Heritage of Rhetoric, edited by Keith V. Erickson, The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 1974, pp. 235-50.

[In the following essay, Jordan studies Aristotle's use of metaphor in Rhetoric, asserting that the context of Aristotle's statements about metaphor indicates that his conception of metaphor was psychological in nature. Aristotle, Jordan notes, identifies "semantic and structural characteristics which affect reader and listener behavior."]

Unlike much of Aristotle's rhetorical theory, his concept of metaphor has received relatively little attention from contemporary rhetorical theorists. Traditionally, rhetoricians have either overlooked or have not been concerned with Aristotle's psychological aspects of metaphor, as Kennedy observes that "none of the later Greek or Roman accounts seem to share Aristotle's philosophical concern with the psychological bases of figures of speech."¹ Osborn's recent discussion of metaphor likewise denies a psychological consideration of Aristotle's concept of metaphor. According to Osborn:

The emphasis in Aristotle remains primarily upon the linguistic character of metaphor, and the reasons for this emphasis again lie both in the natural tendency of early theory to stress the most obvious characteristics of the figure, and in the conceptual framework which placed the figure under the canon of Style. Moreover, there is no explicit acknowledgment in these observations that the psychological dimension of metaphor is an integral component of its occurrence, an essential part of its being. Certainly the Aristotelian definition does not at all suggest such an essentiality.²

While the Aristotelian definition, alone, may not suggest a psychological orientation to metaphor, the context of his statements concerning metaphor in both the Rhetoric and Poetics provides support for the thesis that Aristotle's concept of metaphor is essentially psychological in that it identifies semantic and structural characteristics which affect reader and listener behavior. The following analysis seeks to reconstruct Aristotle's concept of metaphor, identifying his particular emphases on the psychological elements of the rhetorical metaphor.

Characteristics of Metaphor

Aristotle's statements which indicate his concern with semantic characteristics of metaphor consider the relationship between words and meanings. While the term word … is quite common in Aristotle's writings, and refers to meaningful speech sounds or their written counterparts, his term for meaning varies.³ In addition to using the term meaning, Aristotle refers to "mental experience" or "images in the thinking soul." Aristotle argues that words denote meanings when he refers to spoken words as "the symbols of mental experience and written words are the symbols of spoken words. Just as all men have not the same writing, so all men have not the same speech sounds, but the mental experiences, which these directly symbolize, are the same for all, as also are those things of which our experiences are the images."⁴ That is, for the speakers of a language, most words will be used to refer to a specific set of things, objects, concepts or referents.⁵ The common meaning accompanying the generally accepted usage of a word may be considered its denotation. What the word names is its referent. The meaning, however, according to Aristotle, is neither the denotation nor the referent but the mental experience which the word evokes in a listener. From this basis Aristotle's statements concerning metaphor may be considered as part of a semantic construct.

Aristotle's statements which indicate his concern with structural characteristics consider relationships between words. Aristotle makes comparisons between words and groups of words in terms of their frequency of occurrence in the language and their length. These statements provide a basis for considering the structural characteristics of metaphor. After establishing the distinction in Aristotle's writings between semantic and structural characteristics of words, this discussion considers the specific characteristics which distinguish metaphor from literal language.

Buckley sees a distinction in Aristotle's writings between two classifications of word characteristics, a semantic class and a structural class. Each class may be subdivided into two species of words.…

These classifications may be diagrammed as discrete categories.

• Semantic Class
• literal words, [loikeia]
• metaphors, [metaphorai]
• Structural Class
• words in general use, [kuria]
• unfamiliar words, [glōttai]

This distinction explains Aristotle's identification of "the regular … and proper … terms for things," by emphasizing that words have both semantic and structural aspects.⁷

This distinction has been ignored by Cope who says that [kuria] and [oikeia] are virtually the same.⁸ Welldon concurs: "There seems to be practically no difference in meaning between 'proper' and 'special' names; they are the names employed in ordinary speech."⁹ Gillies, however, seems to support Buckley's distinction: "[kuria] are words ordinary and appropriate, in opposition to [glōttai] and [pepoi hemena], foreign and new coined words: [oikeia] are proper words, in opposition to metaphors."¹⁰ Aristotle's use of [kuria], which Roberts translates in the following context as "Clearness is secured by using the words (nouns and verbs alike) that are current and ordinary," also suggests that Aristotle was concerned with a distinct structural element.¹¹

It should be noted that these two classifications are not mutually exclusive. A literal word may be either familiar (in general use) or unfamiliar. Likewise, a metaphor may be composed or either familiar or unfamiliar words. This interrelationship of the semantic with the structural aspects of metaphor is central to Aristotle's concept of the effective metaphor.

Semantic Characteristics

Semantically, metaphor differs from literal language in that it denotes a new or unique meaning. According to Aristotle, "ordinary words convey only what we know already; it is from metaphor that we can best get hold of something fresh."¹² Aristotle provides the following example of metaphor denoting new meaning. "When the poet calls old age 'a withered stalk,' he conveys a new idea, a new fact, to us by means of the general notion of 'lost bloom,' which is common to both things."¹³ This basic semantic nature of metaphor, the denotation of new meaning, can be attributed to the semantic characteristics which distinguish metaphor from literal language.

Semantically, metaphor differs from literal language in terms of its conceptual denotation and in some cases its sensory denotation. These may be thought of as cognitive discrepancies in that they are based on both the listener's and the speaker's knowledge of how things and ideas are related.

Conceptually, for Aristotle, "metaphor consists in giving the thing a name that belongs to something else; the transference being either from genus to species, or from species to genus, or from species to species, or on grounds of analogy."¹⁴ Words used as metaphor denote either a) a specific meaning instead of a more general literal meaning (genus to species), b) a general meaning instead of a more specific literal meaning (species to genus), c) a different specific meaning instead of a literal specific meaning (species to species), or d) an analogous meaning instead of a literal meaning.¹⁵ In all of these cases, the cognitive discrepancy grows out of the metaphor's denotation of a meaning which is different from the literal or ordinary meaning of the words used as metaphor.

The second type of cognitive discrepancy described by Aristotle as being potentially denoted by metaphor is sensory discrepancy. According to Aristotle, metaphor has a discrepant sensory denotation when the words used as metaphor denote a referent capable of expending energy. At the outset, it must be noted that sensory denotation, as a semantic characteristic, is ancillary to metaphor. It is not inherent in all metaphor, nor is it unique to metaphor; other words may also have this characteristic. Sensory discrepancy is considered here because Aristotle explicitly emphasizes this characteristic when treating metaphor.

What Aristotle means by sensory denotation or activity … is best illustrated in his examples. Activity is expenditure of energy.

So with Homer's common practice of giving metaphorical life to lifeless things: all such passages are distinguished by the effect of activity they convey. Thus,

Downward anon to the valley rebounded the
boulder remorseless;
and
The (bitter) arrow flew;

and
Flying on eagerly;
and
Stuck in the earth, still panting to feed on
the flesh of heroes;
and
And the point of the spear in its fury drove
full through his breastbone.
In all these examples the things have the effect of being active because they are made into living beings; shameless behavior and fury and so on are all forms of activity.¹⁶

English translations read [energeia] as either "activity" or "actuality" (except Buckley, who translates this as "personification"). This suggests that a metaphor which has a sensory denotation is not limited strictly to visual referents as some translations seem to suggest.

Apparently activity has been selected by some translators because Aristotle relates metaphorical activity and physical vision in his introduction to his discussion of the sensory metaphor.

By making them "see things" I mean using expressions that represent things as in a state of activity. Thus, to say that a good man is 'four-square' is certainly a metaphor; both the good man and the square are perfect; but the metaphor does not suggest activity. On the other hand, in the expression 'with his vigor in full bloom' there is a notion of activity; and so in 'But you must roam as free as a sacred victim'; and in

Thereat up sprang the Hellenes to their feet, where 'up sprang' gives us activity as well as metaphor, for it at once suggests swiftness.¹⁷

Freese translates the first sentence of the preceding passage as "I mean that things are set before the eyes by words that signify actuality."¹⁸ … Roberts explains activity as setting things "before the eyes" of the listener. As a result of this interpretation, Roberts calls the active metaphor a "graphic metaphor," implying that the metaphor is limited to representing visually active referents.¹⁹ As the examples provided by Aristotle suggest, the active or sensory metaphor is not limited to denoting visual activity. Thus, "remorseless," "eagerly," "panting," and "in its fury" as examples of the sensory metaphor are understood better as metaphors which denote expenditure of energy, rather than graphic metaphors. Aristotle even notes that things not in motion may be thought of as capable of expending energy.²⁰ The example, "with his vigor in full bloom," is not a movement but a state of being which can be sensed. Therefore, the concept of sensory denotation seems to encompass all of the possibilities suggested by such terms as graphic, active, representing actuality.…

In describing metaphor, Aristotle suggests that metaphor differs from literal language in its evaluative or affective denotation. This discrepancy is considered affective because it concerns the evaluations which the speaker or listener places upon the referent. According to Aristotle, when the speaker uses metaphor and gives the thing a name that belongs to something else, he necessarily denotes meaning which is more favorable or less favorable than would be denoted by literal language. Aristotle argues that two different words denote different evaluations. "Two different words will represent a thing in two different lights; so on this ground also one term must be held fairer or fouler than another. For both of two terms will indicate what is fair, or what is foul, but not simply their fairness or their foulness, or if so, at any rate not in an equal degree."²¹ On this point Aristotle's translators are in agreement. Metaphor and the word it replaces meet the criterion of two different words, for if they were the same in their denotation, then one could not be metaphor.

According to Aristotle, all possible words whose meanings can be denoted by other words will differ in the evaluative meaning which they denote. Aristotle explains that "it is like having to ask ourselves what dress will suit an old man; certainly not the crimson cloak that suits a young man. And if you wish to pay a compliment, you must take your metaphor from something better in the same line; if to disparage, from something worse."²² For example, "Somebody calls actors 'hangers-on of Dionysus,' but they call themselves 'artists': each of these terms is a metaphor, the one intended to throw dirt at the actor, the other to dignify him. And pirates now call themselves 'purveyors.' We can thus call a crime a mistake, or a mistake a crime."²³ Semantically metaphor is more than a word substitution technique. It is the selection of a word for the purpose of changing the evaluative relationship which exists between the referent and the word which names it. All metaphors are evaluative.

Structural Characteristics

Aristotle's concept of metaphor concerns the occurrence of words within a language and the norms which are descriptive of their occurrence. In the Rhetoric, Aristotle's treatment of structural phenomena is inexact and unsystematic. On the basis of his observations, Aristotle identifies two structural characteristics relevant to metaphor. These characteristics are the frequency of occurrence of the words which compose the metaphor and the length of the metaphor.

Aristotle's concern with the frequency of occurrence of words in speech is evident in his linguistic classification of words into two subgroups. The first consists of ordinary words, … which Aristotle defines as those "in general use in a country."²⁴ Due to their general use, these words would have a relatively high frequency of occurrence. The second group of words consists of strange words, or words "in use elsewhere,".… Frequency of occurrence distinguishes [ordinary words] from [strange words]. According to Aristotle, "the same word may obviously be at once strange and ordinary, though not in reference to the same people; [sigunon], for instance, is an ordinary word in Cyprus, and a strange word with us."²⁵ Strange words are, necessarily, words with a low or no frequency of occurrence in the language. Other words which have a low frequency of occurrence and which Aristotle includes in the category of [strange words] are compound words, invented words, lengthened words, curtailed words, and words altered in form, for all of these deviate from normal speech.²⁶

The Rhetoric recommends that metaphor be constructed from high frequency words. According to Aristotle, the speech of ordinary life, or high frequency words, are of two kinds. "In the language of prose, besides the regular and proper terms for things, metaphorical terms only can be used with advantage. This we gather from the fact that these two classes of terms, the proper or regular and the metaphorical—these and no others—are used by everybody in conversation."²⁷ Because they are used by everybody in conversation, words used metaphorically can be identified as high frequency words. In addition, Aristotle says that "metaphor … gives style clearness … as nothing else can."²⁸ And clearness is obtained by using high frequency words. Aristotle says that "style to be good must be clear, as is proved by the fact that speech which fails to convey a plain meaning will fail to do just what speech has to do.… Clearness is secured by using the words (nouns and verbs alike) that are current and ordinary."²⁹ Because metaphor gives style clearness, and clearness is also obtained from words of high frequency, Aristotle asserts that the effective metaphor will be composed of high frequency words.

Limitations

In developing limitations to the invention of metaphor, Aristotle explicitly states that knowing the characteristics which compose metaphor does not guarantee the successful construction of metaphor. Specifically, Aristotle states that "their actual invention can only come through natural talent or long practice; but this treatise may indicate the way it is done."³⁰ The invention of metaphor, or the way it is done, is accomplished by combining the necessary semantic and structural characteristics in selecting words for discourse. The basic limitation imposed by Aristotle upon the selection process is that the words be appropriate to rhetorical discourse.

By appropriate, Aristotle means that metaphor should denote discrepant meaning which, while differing from literal meaning, also is related to the literal language which the speaker would normally use in the same situation. According to Aristotle, "metaphor must be drawn, as has been stated already, from things that are related to the original thing, and yet not obviously so related."³¹ But Aristotle warns against constructing a metaphor which is too discrepant. "Metaphors must not be far-fetched," and "we must draw them not from remote but from kindred and similar things."³²

Aristotle provides examples of metaphor that are too "far-fetched," or too discrepant. According to Aristotle: "Others [metaphors] are too grand and theatrical; and these, if they are far-fetched, may also be obscure. For instance, Gorgias talks of 'events that are green and full of sap,' and says 'foul was the deed you sowed and evil the harvest you reaped.' That is too much like poetry. Alcidamas, again, called philosophy 'a fortress that threatens the power of law,' and the Odyssey 'a goodly looking-glass of human life,' and talked about 'offering no such toy to poetry."³³ While Aristotle's translators seem to object to these metaphors because they are too much like poetry, the point Aristotle seems to be making is that the potential meanings of the words used as metaphor in these instances were either too discrepant from or too similar to the literal words which would describe the same referents.³⁴ Ideally, then, metaphor should obtain some optimal mean of discrepancy although that mean is unidentified in Aristotle's concept of metaphor.

Effects of Metaphor

Whereas the preceding discussion has focused on the specific characteristics of metaphor, this discussion explains how Aristotle sees those characteristics contributing to a rhetorically functional metaphor, one which is potentially advantageous in discourse. Aristotle's concept points to three potential rhetorical advantages evolving from metaphor: liveliness, appetence and pleasure. These advantages evolve from the characteristics which Aristotle attributes to metaphor. These advantages, in conjunction with the characteristics previously described, constitute a composite explication of Aristotle's concept of the rhetorically functional metaphor.

Metaphor and Liveliness Effects

Aristotle identifies metaphor as evoking new meaning rapidly and with little effort for the listener. Although Aristotle develops this point with a concept of liveliness, this rhetorical advantage may be described more precisely in terms of the listener's efficiency of response.

Aristotle explicitly relates rapid evocation of new meaning to liveliness when he says "both speech and reasoning are lively in proportion as they make us seize a new idea promptly."³⁵ Stated somewhat differently, words which require little mental effort to understand utilize a characteristic of liveliness which allows the listener "to get hold of new ideas easily."³⁶ The Greek term for "lively" is [asteia], which is defined as "of the town, urbane, courteous, polite, witty, elegant, neat, and pretty."³⁷ Translations of [asteia] read "smart and popular, clever and popular, urbanities, and lively, pointed, sprightly, witty, facetious, clever, and popular sayings."³⁸ Aristotle's metaphorical use of [asteia] is not clarified by his translators. From what Aristotle says about liveliness in the Rhetoric, however, "efficiency" seems to be the better term to describe how metaphor evokes new meaning. While liveliness rather ambiguously describes a characteristic of language, efficiency is more descriptive of a behavioral response.

Aristotle identifies metaphor as an efficient symbol when he states that "liveliness is specially conveyed by metaphor."³⁹ According to what Aristotle says concerning liveliness, a word may be more efficient when it is semantically discrepant with the listener's expectations, when it evokes sensory denotations, and when it is linguistically or structurally frequent and brief.

Metaphor may create the potential advantage of efficiency because it is discrepant with the expectations of the listener. In Aristotle's terminology "liveliness is specially conveyed by metaphor, and by the further power of surprising the hearer; because the hearer expected something different, his acquisition of the new idea impresses him all the more."⁴⁰ Aristotle's implication here is that the listener expects literal language. That is, he expects words to be used in consistent ways. Because it is cognitively and affectively different from literal language, any specific metaphor should be unexpected. As a result, when the listener perceives a metaphor, he is either aware of being "deceived" or "surprised," depending upon translators, because metaphorical meaning is unexpected.

Metaphor may be more efficient than other symbols when it has sensory denotations. Although the Rhetoric does not provide a detailed analysis of how the active or sensory metaphor evokes new meaning efficiently, it does suggest that sensory metaphors are more efficient.

According to Aristotle, "liveliness is got by … using expressions that represent things as in a state of activity," and "activity is movement."⁴¹ The psychological implications of this premise are explained, in part, by Aristotle in his psychological treatise On the Soul. In Aristotle's concept of the physical world of perceivers and referents (as opposed to the verbal world of listeners and words), of all things capable of being perceived, man most readily perceives movement. This is because all states of an object's existence are, according to Aristotle, states of movement. "The objects which we perceive incidentally through this or that special sense, … we perceive by movement, e.g., magnitude by movement, and therefore also figure (for figure is a species of magnitude), what is at rest by absence of movement."⁴² Because movement or its absence is more readily perceived, Aristotle seems to attribute efficiency to metaphors which represent things as moving or capable of moving.

In addition to semantic characteristics, Aristotle suggests that structural characteristics may also contribute to metaphor's potential efficiency.

According to Aristotle, literal words are inefficient in evoking new meaning rapidly and easily. This assumption applies to both infrequent and frequent words when used literally. A structurally infrequent or strange word is not generally understood by a listener, and a frequent or ordinary word is one whose literal meaning is not new to the listener. According to Aristotle, "strange words simply puzzle us; ordinary words convey only what we know already."⁴³ Neither of these structural units, when used literally, evokes new meaning easily or efficiently.

Metaphor, however, may be an efficient source of new meaning, particularly when constructed of structurally frequent words. According to Aristotle, "it is from metaphor that we best get hold of something fresh."⁴⁴ Two alternatives exist for metaphor. It can be either an infrequent word used uniquely or a frequent word used uniquely. Since infrequent words usually have no literal meaning for the listener, he cannot perceive that the word is being used metaphorically and no new meaning is evoked. This implies that what may be metaphor for a speaker may not be metaphor for a listener. When such a situation occurs, Aristotle would suggest that the meaning is unclear.

To achieve efficiency and still insure clarity, Aristotle recommends using high frequency words in unique ways. According to Aristotle, "clearness is secured by using the words (nouns and verbs alike) that are current and ordinary."⁴⁵ At the same time clearness is obtained, the essential discrepant nature of metaphor also may be obtained by using words uniquely. This is apparently what Aristotle means when he states that metaphor gives style "clearness" and "distinction" at the same time.

Related to frequency is the structural characteristic of length. The shorter the metaphor, the more efficient it should be in evoking new meaning. Specifically Aristotle states that "the more briefly … such sayings [metaphors] can be expressed, the more taking they are,… brevity [impresses the new idea] more quickly"; or "conciseness gives knowledge more rapidly."⁴⁶ Aristotle is not concerned here with absolute length of words, but rather with relative lengths of alternative words, whether it be a shorter word in place of a longer word, or a shorter passage in place of a longer passage. As a case in point, Aristotle's major criticism of the simile is that it is unnecessarily long: "The simile, as we have said, is a metaphor differing only by the addition of a word, wherefore it is less pleasant because it is longer."⁴⁷ The essence of Aristotle's argument seems to be that words which do not contribute to new meaning impede the efficiency of the other words which are being used to evoke new meaning. Thus, by eliminating the unnecessary words within the metaphor, the length is shortened, and the shortened metaphor may be more efficient.

Metaphor and Appetence Effects

In Aristotle's concept, metaphor potentially has an effect on the motivational states of the listener. In terms of a rhetorical advantage, metaphor associates meaning with the desire of the listener to avoid or pursue the referent of the meaning to a greater degree than literal symbols. While Aristotle does not use the term motivation, he does talk about appetence, that faculty "of which desire, passion, and wish are the species."⁴⁸ In Shute's analysis of Aristotle's concept, motivation follows perception in that "the presence of sensation always arouses some kind of desire, for what is sensed causes pleasure or pain, and desire is a craving for what is pleasant."⁴⁹ As Aristotle would explain motivation theory, "when the object is pleasant or painful, the soul makes a quasi-affirmation or negation, and pursues or avoids the object."⁵⁰ Aristotle illustrates how the motives of a person may filter what he perceives in the process of associating meaning and values.

The faculty of thinking then thinks the forms in images, and … what is to be pursued or avoided is marked out for it.… E.g. perceiving by sense that the beacon is fire, it recognizes in virtue of the general faculty of sense that it signifies an enemy, because it sees it moving; but sometimes by means of the images or thoughts which are within the soul, just as if it were seeing, it calculates and deliberates what is to come by reference to what is present; and when it makes a pronouncement, as in the case of sensation, it pronounces the object to be pleasant or painful, in this case it avoids or pursues; and so generally in cases of action.⁵¹

The listener may not make a simple yes-no type of evaluation. Instead, as Shute explains Aristotle's concept of motivation, the process of associating referents with values may be very complex.

This process of deliberation may be immensely complicated. It may lead to considerations which nullify the claims of the goal. But if it reaches its end, that conclusion is the conclusion of the individual, for the mind is the organism thinking, rather than something apart from it. Thus the conclusion of this mental activity is identical with the actualizing or energizing of the individual in relation to his object, and the overt activity is in progress.⁵²

Because of this complexity of the intervening considerations, metaphor is qualified as "potentially" affecting motivation.

Metaphor potentially may affect motivation because it evaluates its referent. As discussed previously, Aristotle states that no two words used to denote the same meaning will evoke the same meaning. The meanings will differ at least in evaluation. Stated another way, metaphor evokes a different evaluation of a referent than does the literal word. The purpose of the evaluation, according to Aristotle, is to identify the referent as being either more or less pleasant or more or less painful. Aristotle provides examples of these possibilities.

When metaphor evaluates a referent as pleasant, it identifies it as an object of pursuit for the listener. Of course there may be relative degrees of pleasantness. When the referent is evaluated as more pleasant than the listener's evaluation, the referent potentially becomes an object of increased pursuit. When the referent is evaluated as less pleasant than the listener's evaluation, the referent potentially becomes an object of decreased pursuit. Aristotle's example of two terms for a religious title illustrates this. "So Iphicrates called Callias a 'mendicant priest' instead of a 'torchbearer,' and Callias replied that Iphicrates must be uninitiated or he would have called him not a 'mendicant priest' but a 'torchbearer.' Both are religious titles, but one is honourable and the other is not."⁵³ The religious position of Callias, a potential object of pursuit, is evaluated as an object of greater pursuit by the metaphor "torchbearer," and as an object of lesser pursuit by the metaphor "mendicant priest." Again, it should be emphasized that any possible evaluation only potentially affects the listener. He may accept the evaluation or reject it. If he accepts the evaluation, according to Aristotle's explanation of motivation, he should act accordingly. To the extent that metaphor may be held responsible for associating the meaning with the pursuit motives of the listener, it may be considered a persuasive stimulus.

When metaphor evaluates a referent as painful, it is identified as an object for the listener to avoid. The evaluation may suggest greater or lesser avoidance of the referent. Evaluation which identifies the referent as an object of greater avoidance is evidenced, says Aristotle, when we call actors "hangers-on of Dionysus," or say that a thief "plundered his victim," or that Orestes is a "mother-slayer."⁵⁴ Evaluation which identifies the referent as an object of lesser avoidance is evidenced when begging is described as "praying," when pirates call themselves "purveyors," when a crime is called a "mistake," when a thief is said to "take" a thing, or when Orestes is called his "father's avenger."⁵⁵ All of these examples, according to Aristotle, attempt to change the evaluative meaning of the referent through metaphorical transfer which identifies the referent as an object to avoid. To the extent that the listener accepts the evaluation and avoids the referent, the metaphor may be considered persuasive.

Metaphor and Pleasure Effects

In addition to describing metaphor as a motivational element, Aristotle suggests that metaphor creates pleasure. In Aristotle's philosophy, pleasure is a normal or natural state of man which results from human activity or movement. In Metaphysics, Aristotle states that "pleasure in its highest form of speculative philosophical pleasure, is identical with the highest happiness … [and] is represented as the pleasure of the Supreme Being; and because this is the nature of pleasure, all states of activity, waking, sensation, thinking give the highest pleasure; and to one of these all other pleasure, as those of anticipation and recollection are due."⁵⁶ Ross concludes from this definition that pleasure "cannot be a movement.… But it is in fact something complete in itself."⁵⁷ Pleasure, then, is a resulting condition or state. Cope prefers this to the definition found in the Rhetoric, which he dismisses as being sufficient enough for the rhetorician, but "both virtually and actually contradicted" in Aristotle's other writings.⁵⁸ In the Rhetoric, Aristotle defines pleasure as both the activity leading up to and the final effect of the listener's achieving a normal state of being: "We may lay it down that Pleasure is a movement, a movement by which the soul as a whole is consciously brought into its normal state of being."⁵⁹ When viewed as a natural state rather than a movement or process, pleasure may be studied more profitably from a rhetorical viewpoint as a potential effect of metaphor rather than a process.

Metaphor potentially creates a pleasurable state in the listener because it causes the activity of learning to occur. Aristotle uses the term "learning" to describe a pleasurable experience when he states that "learning things and wondering at things are also pleasant as a rule; wondering implies the desire of learning, so that the object of wonder is an object of desire; while in learning one is brought into one's natural condition."⁶⁰ Acts of imitation also cause learning because "the spectator draws inferences ('That is a so-and-so') and thus learns something fresh."⁶¹ In almost identical terms Aristotle talks about the pleasure derived from metaphor. "Easy learning is naturally pleasant to all, and words mean something, so that all words which make us learn something are most pleasant.… It is metaphor, therefore, that above all produces this effect."⁶² And again, "Well-constructed riddles are pleasant for the same reason—the solution is an act of learning; and they are expressed metaphorically, too."⁶³ Metaphor causes the listener to learn, and to Aristotle this is a pleasurable experience. The pleasure which can be created by metaphor exists as a potential rhetorical advantage in Aristotle's concept.

Conclusion

Whereas all symbols may function to evoke new meaning, Aristotle distinguishes metaphor from all other evocative symbols. Aristotle's essentially psychological concept of metaphor suggests that the listener potentially responds to metaphor by constructing new meaning more efficiently than if the new meaning were evoked by literal language, by changing his evaluation of the metaphor's referent, and by deriving pleasure from the metaphor. Both semantic and structural characteristics appear to account for these effects. This interpretation of Aristotle's concept of metaphor is pertinent to modern studies of style. Aristotle's essentially psychological emphasis provides a deeply traditional basis for a behavioral study of the rhetorical effects of metaphor. Not only does Aristotle's concept identify those effects, it also identifies stimulus characteristics pertinent to any behavioral study of metaphor.

Notes

¹ George Kennedy, The Art of Persuasion in Greece (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963), p. 111.

² Michael M. Osborn, "The Function and Significance of Metaphor in Rhetorical Discourse," (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, The University of Florida, 1963), p. 21.

³Categories la. Unless indicated, all subsequent quotations from Aristotle's works are from the Oxford edition, The Works of Aristotle, 2 Vols., ed. by W. D. Ross, in Great Books of the Western World, Vols. 8-9, ed. by Robert Maynard Hutchins (54 vols.; Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 1952). In addition to the Rhys Roberts translation of the Rhetoric in the Oxford edition, additional texts and translations of the Rhetoric have been consulted. These are: Aristotle's Rhetoric (London: Printed by T. B. for Randall Taylor near Stationers-Hall, 1686); Theodore Buckley, Aristotle's Treatise on Rhetoric and the Poetic of Aristotle (fourth edition, London: George Bell and Sons, 1906); Lane Cooper, The Rhetoric of Aristotle (New York: Appleton-Century Crofts, Inc., 1932); Edward Meredith Cope, The Rhetoric of Aristotle, ed. by John Edwin Sandys, (3 vols.; Cambridge: University Press, 1877); Daniel Michael Crimmin, A Dissertation on Rhetoric, translated from the Greek of Aristotle (second edition, London: J. J. Stockdale, 1812); J. H. Freese, Art of Rhetoric (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1926); John Gillies, A New Translation of Aristotle's Rhetoric (London: T. Cadell, 1823); Richard Claverhouse Jebb, The Rhetoric of Aristotle, ed. by John Edwin Sandys (Cambridge: University Press, 1909); J. E. C. Welldon, The Rhetoric of Aristotle (London: MacMillan and Company, 1886); and G. M. A. Grube, On Poetry and Style: Aristotle (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., 1958).

⁴On Interpretation 16a.

⁵ As used by Ogden and Richards, "referent" seems to be the most all inclusive term. C. K. Ogden and I. A. Richards, The Meaning of Meaning (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, Inc., 1923), pp. 9-12.

⁶ Buckley, Aristotle's Treatise, p. 209.

⁷Rhetoric 1404b.

⁸ E. M. Cope, An Introduction to Aristotle's Rhetoric (London: Macmillan and Company, 1867), pp. 282ff.

⁹ Welldon, The Rhetoric, p. 230.

¹⁰ Gillies, A New Translation, p. 368.

¹¹Rhetoric 1404b.

¹²Ibid. 1410b.

¹³Ibid.

¹⁴Poetics 1457b. In Posterior Analytics 96b ff., Aristotle treats genus and species as categories of thought. As such, these may be viewed as inventive "places" from which the speaker develops metaphor. While Osborn recognizes this kind of inventive system in Peacham's The Garden of Eloquence, he overlooks this interpretation of Aristotle's definition; see Michael M. Osborn, "The Evolution of the Theory of Metaphor in Rhetoric," Western Speech, XXXI (Spring, 1967), 123-26. When genus and species are viewed as categories of thought, Aristotle's definition of metaphor does point to an essential psychological dimension.

¹⁵ Aristotle's definition of metaphor concerns the generic concept rather than the specific trope Metaphor found in most modern treatments of style. According to Welldon, "the Aristotelian use of [metaphora] is considerably wider than that of 'metaphor' in English. Any transference of a word from its proper or ordinary application to another would be a [metaphora] whether it involved a comparison or not," The Rhetoric, pp. 232-33.

¹⁶Rhetoric 1411b-1412a.

¹⁷Ibid. 141lb.

¹⁸ Freese, Art of Rhetoric, p. 405.

¹⁹Rhetoric 141lb.

²⁰On the Soul 425a.

²¹Rhetoric 1405b.

²²Ibid. 1405a.

²³Ibid.

²⁴Poetics 1457b.

²⁵Ibid.

²⁶Rhetoric 1404b. In Poetics, Aristotle classifies metaphor with deviate forms. "On the other hand the diction becomes distinguished and non-prosaic by the use of unfamiliar terms, i.e. strange words, metaphors, lengthened forms, and everything that deviates from the ordinary modes of speech." Poetics 1458a. This is contradicted in the Rhetoric. "These two classes of terms, the proper or regular and the metaphorical—these and no others—are used by everybody in conversation." Rhetoric 1404b. Metaphor, in rhetoric, is a semantic deviation, a deviation from norms of word usage, while at the same time not deviating from word frequency norms. Perhaps a difference between the poetic metaphor and the rhetorical metaphor is that the rhetorical metaphor attempts to clarify meaning and the poetic metaphor attempts to obscure meaning.

²⁷Rhetoric 1404b.

²⁸Ibid. 1405a.

²⁹Ibid. 1404b.

³⁰Ibid. 1410b.

³¹Ibid. 1413a.

³²Ibid. 1410b; 1413a.

³³Ibid. 1406b.

³⁴ According to Grube, "We should agree with Aristotle that Gorgias' reference to Philomela, who in legend was changed into a swallow, is frigid. We should also condemn most of his other examples, but the Odyssey as a mirror of human life rather appeals to us, except that by this time it is a cliche." Grube, On Poetry, p. 75.

³⁵Rhetoric 1410b.

³⁶Ibid.

³⁷ See Henry George Liddell and Robert Scott, The Classic Greek Dictionary (Chicago: Follett Publishing Company, 1927), p. 109.

³⁸Rhetoric 1412a.

³⁹Ibid.

⁴⁰Ibid.

⁴¹" Ibid. 1411b; 1412a.

⁴²On the Soul 425a.

⁴³Rhetoric 1410b.

⁴⁴Ibid.

⁴⁵Ibid.

⁴⁶Ibid. 1412b; Freese, Art of Rhetoric, p. 413.

⁴⁷Rhetoric 1410b.

⁴⁸On the Soul 414b.

⁴⁹ Clarence Shute, The Psychology of Aristotle (Momingside Heights, New York: Columbia University Press, 1941), p. 85. This is Shute's summary of the concepts found in On the Soul 413b, 414b, and 431a.

⁵⁰On the Soul 431a.

⁵¹Ibid. 431b.

⁵² Shute, The Psychology, pp. 82-3.

⁵³Rhetoric 1405a.

⁵⁴Ibid. 1405a, 1405b.

⁵⁵Ibid.

⁵⁶ This is Cope's interpretation of Metaphysics 1072b in An Introduction, pp. 238-39.

⁵⁷ W. D. Ross, Aristotle (fifth edition, London: Methuen and and Company, 1949), p. 228.

⁵⁸ Cope, An Introduction, p. 235.

⁵⁹Rhetoric 1370a.

⁶⁰Ibid. 1371b.

⁶¹Ibid.

⁶² Freese, Art of Rhetoric, pp. 395, 397.

⁶³ Cooper, The Rhetoric, p. 312.