The art of the metaphor - Jane Hirshfield
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0:15 - 0:18When we talk, sometimes we say things directly.
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0:18 - 0:21"I'll be going to the store, I'll be back in five minutes."
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0:21 - 0:22Other times though, we talk in a way
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0:22 - 0:25that conjures up a small scene.
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0:25 - 0:27"It's raining cats and dogs out," we say, or
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0:27 - 0:30"I was waiting for the other shoe to drop."
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0:30 - 0:32Metaphors are a way to talk about one thing
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0:32 - 0:35by describing something else.
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0:35 - 0:37That may seem roundabout, but it's not.
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0:37 - 0:41Seeing and hearing and tasting are how we know anything first.
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0:41 - 0:45The philosopher William James described the world of newborn infants
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0:45 - 0:48as a "buzzing and blooming confusion."
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0:48 - 0:54Abstract ideas are pale things compared to those first bees and blossoms.
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0:54 - 0:57Metaphors think with the imagination and the senses.
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0:57 - 1:01The hot chile peppers in them explode in the mouth and the mind.
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1:01 - 1:03They're also precise.
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1:03 - 1:07We don't really stop to think about a raindrop the size of an actual cat or dog,
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1:07 - 1:12but as soon as I do, I realize that I'm quite certain the dog has to be a small one -
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1:12 - 1:16a cocker spaniel, or a dachshund - and not a golden lab
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1:16 - 1:19or Newfoundland. I think a beagle might be about right.
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1:19 - 1:24A metaphor isn't true or untrue in any ordinary sense.
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1:24 - 1:30Metaphors are art, not science, but they can still feel right or wrong.
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1:30 - 1:33A metaphor that isn't good leaves you confused.
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1:33 - 1:36You know what it means to feel like a square wheel,
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1:36 - 1:39but not what it's like to be tired as a whale.
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1:39 - 1:41There's a paradox to metaphors.
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1:41 - 1:44They almost always say things that aren't true.
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1:44 - 1:46If you say, "there's an elephant in the room,"
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1:46 - 1:51there isn't an actual one, looking for the peanut dish on the table.
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1:51 - 1:56Metaphors get under your skin by ghosting right past the logical mind.
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1:56 - 1:58Plus, we're used to thinking in images.
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1:58 - 2:01Every night we dream impossible things.
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2:01 - 2:04And when we wake up, that way of thinking's still in us.
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2:04 - 2:06We take off our dream shoes,
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2:06 - 2:09and button ourselves into our lives.
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2:09 - 2:13Some metaphors include the words "like" or "as."
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2:13 - 2:15"Sweet as honey," "strong as a tree."
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2:15 - 2:17Those are called similes.
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2:17 - 2:21A simile is a metaphor that admits it's making a comparison.
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2:21 - 2:24Similes tend to make you think.
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2:24 - 2:27Metaphors let you feel things directly.
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2:27 - 2:29Take Shakespeare's famous metaphor,
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2:29 - 2:34"All the world's a stage." "The world is like a stage" just seems thinner,
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2:34 - 2:36and more boring.
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2:36 - 2:38Metaphors can also live in verbs.
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2:38 - 2:43Emily Dickinson begins a poem "I saw no way, the heavens were stitched,"
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2:43 - 2:49and we know instantly what it would feel like if the sky were a fabric sewn shut.
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2:49 - 2:51They can live in adjectives too.
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2:51 - 2:55"Still waters run deep," we say of someone
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2:55 - 2:58quiet and thoughtful. And the deep matters as much
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2:58 - 3:01as the stillness and the water do.
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3:01 - 3:05One of the clearest places to find good metaphors is in poems.
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3:05 - 3:10Take this haiku by the 18th century Japanese poet Issa.
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3:10 - 3:14"On a branch floating downriver, a cricket singing."
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3:14 - 3:19The first way to meet a metaphor is just to see the world through its eyes:
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3:19 - 3:23An insect sings from a branch passing by in the middle of the river.
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3:23 - 3:27Even as you see that though, some part of you recognizes in the image
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3:27 - 3:33a small portrait of what it's like to live in this world of change and time,
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3:33 - 3:36our human fate is to vanish, as surely as that small cricket will,
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3:36 - 3:42and still, we do what it does. We live, we sing.
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3:42 - 3:46Sometimes a poem takes a metaphor and extends it,
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3:46 - 3:49building on one idea in many ways.
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3:49 - 3:54Here's the beginning of Langston Hughes' famous poem "Mother to Son."
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3:54 - 4:00"Well, son, I'll tell you. Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
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4:00 - 4:03It's had tacks in it, and splinters,
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4:03 - 4:07and boards torn up, and places with no carpet on the floor."
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4:07 - 4:10Langston Hughes is making a metaphor that compares
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4:10 - 4:14a hard life to a wrecked house you still have to live in.
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4:14 - 4:16Those splinters and tacks feel real,
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4:16 - 4:19they hurt your own feet and your own heart,
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4:19 - 4:22but the mother is describing her life here,
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4:22 - 4:23not her actual house.
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4:23 - 4:30And hunger, and cold exhausting work and poverty are what's also inside those splinters.
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4:30 - 4:34Metaphors aren't always about our human lives and feelings.
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4:34 - 4:36The Chicago poet Carl Sandburg wrote
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4:36 - 4:45"The fog comes on little cat feet. It sits looking over harbor and city on silent haunches, and then moves on."
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4:45 - 4:48The comparison here is simple.
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4:48 - 4:51Fog is being described as a cat.
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4:51 - 4:53But a good metaphor isn't a puzzle,
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4:53 - 4:55or a way to convey hidden meanings,
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4:55 - 4:59it's a way to let you feel and know something differently.
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4:59 - 5:01No one who's heard this poem forgets it.
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5:01 - 5:05You see fog, and there's a small grey cat nearby.
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5:05 - 5:09Metaphors give words a way to go beyond their own meaning.
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5:09 - 5:11They're handles on the door of what we can know,
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5:11 - 5:15and of what we can imagine.
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5:15 - 5:16Each door leads to some new house,
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5:16 - 5:21and some new world that only that one handle can open.
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5:21 - 5:23What's amazing is this:
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5:23 - 5:27By making a handle, you can make a world.
- Title:
- The art of the metaphor - Jane Hirshfield
- Speaker:
- Jane Hirshfield
- Description:
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View full lesson on ed.ted.com http://ed.ted.com/lessons/jane-hirshfield-the-art-of-the-metaphor
How do metaphors help us better understand the world? And, what makes a good metaphor? Explore these questions with writers like Langston Hughes and Carl Sandburg, who have mastered the art of bringing a scene or emotion to life.
Lesson by Jane Hirshfield, animation by Ben Pearce
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TED-Ed
- Duration:
- 05:39
Krystian Aparta edited English subtitles for The art of the metaphor | ||
Krystian Aparta commented on English subtitles for The art of the metaphor | ||
Krystian Aparta edited English subtitles for The art of the metaphor | ||
Brian Greene edited English subtitles for The art of the metaphor | ||
Jenny Zurawell edited English subtitles for The art of the metaphor | ||
Bedirhan Cinar approved English subtitles for The art of the metaphor | ||
Bedirhan Cinar accepted English subtitles for The art of the metaphor | ||
Bedirhan Cinar edited English subtitles for The art of the metaphor |
Krystian Aparta
The English transcript was updated on 10/12/2016.