Book Description

Excerpt from Metaphor and Simile in the Minor Elizabethan Drama The aim of this study is partly descriptive, partly theoretical. I have selected eight of the representative dramatists of the reign of Elizabeth and the early years of the reign of James I, not including Shakspere, have made an analysis of the characteristics of each author in his use of metaphor and simile, and in the range and sources of his imagery, and have endeavored to state the results of this study in each case in some detail. In conclusion I have attempted to formulate a few generalizations in regard to the Elizabethan drama as a whole, considered in relation to the characteristic diction and imagery employed in it. This is the descriptive part of the work. At the same time consideration of the theory and the classification of the figures of speech, especially of the higher and more imaginative figures, has been forced upon me by the extreme complexity and the elliptical abruptness and difficulty of many of the characteristic images to be found in the pages of the authors studied. I have however no new definitions or classifications of importance to offer; but the illustrations under the several heads of Simile, Implied Simile, Fable, Proverb, Allegory, Hyperbole, Conceit, and Personification, as herein presented, may possibly serve as material in the elucidation of the subject by others. Some sixteen years ago Dr. Friedrich Brinkmann began to publish an extensive work on the study of Metaphor, of which however only one volume out of several proposed was ever published. This volume contains an extended statement of the theory of metaphor, suggestions and illustrations of various points of view in the study of metaphor, and finally a minute analysis of the principal metaphors which are drawn from domestic animals. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.