Revived metaphors

Trite metaphors are sometimes revived, i.e. their primary meaning is re-established alongside with the new meaning. E.g.

3) “Mr.Pickwick bottled up (закупоривать, сдерживать, скрывать)his vengeance (месть, мщение) and corked it down”. The verb to bottle up is explained in dictionaries as follows: “to keep in check”, “to conceal, to restrain, repress”. So the metaphor can hardly be felt. But it is revived by the direct meaning of the verb to cork down.

Metaphor has no formal limitations: it can be a word, a phrase, any part of a sentence, or a sentence as a whole.

Metaphor can be expressed by all notional parts of speech, and functions in the sentence as any of its members:

4) 1)“The human tide is rolling westward.” (Dombey and son)

2)“The leaves fell sorrowfully”.

3)“In the slanting beams that streamed through the open windows, the dust danced and was golden (The Picture of Dorian Gray).

Sustained metaphors

There are also sustained, or prolonged or extended metaphors (развернутые) – clusters or groups of metaphors, each supplying another feature of the described phenomenon:

5) “Mr.Domby’s cup of satisfaction was so full at this moment, however, that he felt he could afford a drop or two of its contents, even to sprinkle on the dust in the by-path of his little daughter.”

In this sustained metaphor the trite metaphor cup of satisfaction is revived by the additional images full, drop, contents, sprinkle (брызнуть, разбрызгивать).

This is a day of your golden opportunity, Sarge. Don’t let it turn to brass.

The functions of metaphor:

Metaphor is one of the most powerful means of creating images. This is its main function

The other functions are:1)esthetic (aesthetic), 2)evaluative, 3)specifying, 4)characterizing.

Personification.

It is a particular case of metaphor. It consists in attributing life and mind to inanimate objects. Besides the actual objects of Nature abstractions of the mind, such as life, death, truth, wisdom, love, evil, hope, etc. are frequently personified. Thus, personification is ascribing human properties to lifeless objects.

The function of personification

Personification is used to impart the dynamic force to the description or to reproduce the particular mood by which the events described are coloured. Personification is also an important device used to depict the perception of the outer world by the lyrical hero.

Allusion

It can be also regarded as a kind of metaphor. An allusion is an indirect reference to a historical, literary, mythological or biblical fact or to a fact of everyday life. The use of allusion presupposes that the reader is familiar with the fact or event mentioned. As a rule no indication of the source is given.

Allusions are based on the accumulated experience and knowledge in the reader. But the knowledge stored in our minds is called forth by an allusion in a peculiar manner. All kinds of associations we may not yet have realized cluster round the facts alluded to.

E.G. “Martian chronicles” - from The Economist, April 7^th 2001. About planned research of Mars by America’s space agency NASA.

The translation of metaphors.

Metaphor is used in all emotionally-coloured styles of speech. But in emotive prose there are mainly genuine metaphors. Dead (trite) metaphors are generally used in newspaper articles as expressive means. Original metaphors are rather rare.

In some cases metaphor can be translated without any transformations:

“a flight of imagination”, “in the heat of the argument”, “to prick up one’s ears”.

These are mainly trite metaphors. But in case of fresh, genuine metaphors very often we have to resort to some transformations, because the translation of genuine metaphor in emotive prose is obligatory.

6) They passed so, that semblance of a thrush and a hawk in terrific immobility in mid-air, this an apparition-like suddenness: a soft clatter of hooves in the sere needle, and were gone, the man stooping, the woman leaning forward like a tableau of flight and pursuit on a lightening bolt.

Они появились неожиданно как духи, и так же неожиданно исчезли в мягком стуке копыт по сухим сосновым иглам; женщина устремилась вперед, мужчина ее преследует – две птицы, застывшие в быстром как ветер полете, коршун и его добыча.

The image is preserved, but the structure of the passage is changed completely.

Sustained (or prolonged) metaphor is more frequent in English texts (fiction, publicist writings, newspapers) than in Russian ones. That’s why it is often possible to omit some parts of prolonged metaphors to comply with the requirements of Russian stylistics.

7) Armies of dark pines march up the steep slopes in serried ranks.

Темные сосны, словно солдаты, поднимаются сомкнутыми рядами по крутым склонам.

Or another example, now from publicist writing, when it’s impossible to convey all images of a sustained metaphor due to the norms of the Russian stylistics:

8) Robert Boothby said “The Prime Minister had played a new tune which had brought hope to millions but then he had fallen ill and his flute had been muted. Our main hope is to learn the tune of these fresh and clear notes, and then orchestrate it, for it ios the best tune any of us are likely to hear for a long time, and perhaps it is the only tune that can save civilization.

Премьер министр исполнил новую мелодию, которая возбудила надежду у миллионов людей, но затем он заболел и его флейта смолкла. Мы должны уповать на то, чтобы выучить кристально-свежие ноты этой мелодии и затем оркестровать ее, ибо это наилучшая мелодия из всех тех, которые мы слышим в течение долгого времени и, пожалуй, это единственная мелодия, которая может спасти цивилизацию.

The bad translation. We should omit some parts of sustained metaphor and make some substitutions:

В речи премьер-министра прозвучали новые нотки, которые пробудили надежду у миллионов людей, но затем он заболел и его голос смолк. Но мы не должны забывать того нового, что прозвучало в его речи, и претворить это в жизнь. Ибо вряд ли мы скоро услышим что-либо подобное. И может быть только таким путем можно спасти человечество.

9) From the dim woods on either bank, Night’s ghostly army, the grey shadows, creep out with noiseless tread to chase away the lingering rear-guard of the light, and pass, with noiseless unseen feet, above the waving river-grass.

С приближением ночи из потемневшего леса, охватившего реку с обеих сторон, серыми призраками крадутся сумеречные тени. Словно рыцари, теснящие отступающего противника, они бесшумной поступью продвигаются все дальше по водной глади и вот уже где-то вдали победоносно завершают свою рукопашную схватку с потускневшим светом уходящего дня.

Very often metaphor can be replaced by simile.