IMAGINATION, METAPHOR AND MYTHOPOEIA IN THE POETRY OF .

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IMAGINATION, METAPHOR AND MYTHOPOEIA IN THE POETRY OFTHREE MAJOR ENGLISH ROMANTIC POETSA THESIS SUBMITTED TOTHE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCESOFMIDDLE EAST TECHNICAL UNIVERSITYBYFIRAT KARADAŞIN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTSFORTHE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHYINENGLISH LITERATUREJULY 2007

Approval of the Graduate School of Social SciencesProf. Dr. SencerAyataDirectorI certify that this thesis satisfies all the requirements as a thesis for the degree ofDoctor of Philosophy.Prof. Dr. Wolf KönigHead of DepartmentThis is to certify that we have read this thesis and that in our opinion it is fullyadequate, in scope and quality, as a thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.Assist. Prof. Dr. Margaret SönmezSupervisorExamining Committee MembersAssoc. Prof. Dr. Şükriye Ruhi(METU, FLE)Assist. Prof. Dr. Margaret Sönmez(METU, FLE)Prof. Dr. Ahmet İnam(METU, PHIL)Assist. Prof. Dr. Nurten Birlik(METU, FLE)Assist. Prof. Dr. Hande Sadun(Hacettepe U., IED)

I hereby declare that all information in this document has been obtainedand presented in accordance with academic rules and ethical conduct. Ialso declare that, as required by these rules and conduct, I have fully citedand referenced all material and results that are not original to this work.Name, Last name : Fırat KaradaşSignatureiii:

ABSTRACTIMAGINATION, METAPHOR AND MYTHOPOEIA IN THE POETRY OFTHREE MAJOR ENGLISH ROMANTIC POETSKaradaş, FıratPh.D., English LiteratureSupervisor : Assist. Prof. Dr. Margaret SönmezJuly 2007, 252 pagesThis thesis studies metaphor, myth and their imaginative aspects in the poetryof William Wordsworth, Percy Bysshe Shelley and John Keats. The thesisargues that a comprehensive understanding of metaphor and myth cannot bedone in the works of these poets without seeing them as faces of the same coin,and taking into consideration the role of the creating subject and itsimagination in their production. Relying on Kantian, Romantic, and modernNeo-Kantian ideas of imagination, metaphor and myth, the study tries toindicate that imagination is an inherently metaphorizing and mythologizingfaculty because the act of perception is an act of giving form to naturalphenomena and seeing similitude in dissimilitude, which are basicallymetaphorical and mythological acts. In its form-giving activity the imaginationof the speaking subjects of the poems studied in this thesis sees objects ofnature as spiritual, animate or divine beings and thus transforms them into thealien territory of myth. This thesis analyzes myth and metaphor mainly in tworegards: first, myth and metaphor are handled as inborn aspects of imaginationand perception, and the interaction between nature and imagination areiv

presented as the origin of all mythology; second, to show how myth issomething that is re-created time and again by poetic imagination, Romanticmythography and re-creation of precursor mythologies are analyzed. In bothregards, poetic imagination appears as a formative power that constructs,defamiliarizes and re-creates via mythologization and metaphorization.Keywords: Romantic poetics, metaphor, myth, imagination, perceptionv

ÖZÖNEMLİ ÜÇ İNGİLİZ ROMANTİK ŞAİRİN ŞİİRLERİNDE İMGELEM,METAFOR VE MİT YARATIMIKaradaş, FıratDoktora, İngiliz EdebiyatıTez Yöneticisi: Yrd. Doç. Dr. Margaret SönmezTemmuz 2007, 252 sayfaBu tez William Wordsworth, Percy Bysshe Shelley ve John Keats’in şiirlerindemetafor, mit ve imgelemsel özelliklerini incelemektedir. Tez, söz konusuşairlerin şiirlerinde mit ve metaforu imgelemin ve algılama sürecinin birbirinitamamlayan etmenleri olarak ele almakta ve yaratımlarında öznenin işlevselrolüne işaret etmektedir. Çalışma, Kantçı, Romantik ve modern Neo-Kantçıimgelem, metafor ve mit düşüncelerine dayanarak imgelemin özünde metaforve mitoloji üreten bir yeti olduğunu çünkü bir öznenin imgelemi için algılamaeyleminin doğadaki nesneleri biçimlendirme ve farklılıklar arasında benzerlikgörme eylemi olduğunu, bunun da temelde metafor ve mit yaratımı anlamınageldiğini söylemektedir. Bu biçimlendirme eylemi esnasında, söz konusuşairlerin şiirlerindeki konuşucu özneler imgelemleriyle doğadaki nesneleretinsel, canlılara özgü veya ilahi özellikler yükleyerek onları mitolojinindoğaüstü ve yabancı dünyasına dönüştürürler. Bu tez, söz konusu şiirlerdemetafor ve miti başlıca iki bağlamda incelemektedir: birinci bağlamda, metaforve miti imgelem ve algılama sürecinin özünde varolan nitelikler olarak elealmakta ve imgelem ile doğa arasındaki etkileşimin antik çağdan, Romantikdöneme ve günümüze kadar mitolojinin kaynağı olduğunu savunmaktadır.vi

İkinci bağlamda ise mitolojinin şiirsel imgelem tarafından sürekli yenidenyaratılan bir şey olduğunu göstermek için Romantik mitografi ele alınmış veeski mitlerin nasıl yeniden yaratıldığı gösterilmiştir. Her iki bağlamda şiirselimgelem mit ve metafor yaratımı yoluyla yeniden kuran ve doğayı mitolojininyabancı dünyasına dönüştüren biçimlendirici bir güç olarak ortaya çıkmaktadır.Anahtar sözcükler: Romantik poetika, metafor, mit, imgelem, algılamavii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTSI wish first to express sincere gratitude and appreciation to my supervisorAssist. Prof. Dr. Margaret Sönmez for her valuable guidence and insight in thewriting process. Thanks go to the jury members Assoc. Prof. Dr. Şükriye Ruhiand Prof. Dr. Ahmet İnam for their advice, criticism, and encouragements.I would also like to thank the other jury members Assist. Prof. Dr. NurtenBirlik and Assist. Prof. Dr. Hande Sadun for their suggestions and comments.To my wife, Derya, I offer sincere thanks for her unshakable faith in me andher willingness to endure with me my endeavors.viii

TABLE OF CONTENTSPLAGIARISM .iiiABSTRACT .ivÖZ .viACKNOWLEDGMENTS .viiiTABLE OF CONTENTS .ixCHAPTER1. INTRODUCTION .11.1 Modern Theories of Metaphor and Myth .31.2 Statement of Purpose.171.3 Methodology .181.4 Limitations of the Study .202. ROMANTIC AND MODERN NEO-ROMANTIC IDEAS OFMETAPHOR AND MYTH AND THEIR CONTRIBUTIONTO THE STUDY OF ENGLISH ROMANTIC POETRY .222.1 The Romantic Idea and Its Philosophical Background .222.1.1 The Philosophical Background .232.1.2 The Romantic Conception .362.2 Modern Neo-Romantic Ideas: Ernst Cassirer andPaul Ricoeur .482.2.1 Ernst Cassirer and the Role of ‘Human Spirit’ inLinguistic and Artistic Creation .50ix

2.2.2 Paul Ricoeur, the Discursive and ImaginativeCharacter of Metaphor and Its Implications forthe Study of Myth .612.3 The Criteria Derived From the TheoreticalFramework .743. METAPHORIZATION AND MYTHOLOGIZATION ASINDISPENSIBLE ASPECTS OF PERCEPTION ANDIMAGINATION IN THE POETRY OF WORDSWORTH,SHELLEY AND KEATS .763.1 Mind and Nature: Interaction or Construction? .783.1.1 Grown Up with the Breathing Soul of Nature:The Mind Learning to Authorize its Mother .783.1.2 Separation From the ‘babe nursed in its mother’sarms:’ Man’s Alienation from Nature .893.1.3 Poetic Imagination as the Origin of All Mythology:Keats’s “I Stood Tip-toe Upon a Hill” .1023.1.4 ‘Some Unseen Pow’r Floats Around’ Beings ofNature: The Tremendous Power of the Mind .1063.2 Evening and Autumn as Mythemes of Mortalityand Transience .1173.3 Nature Beautified or Beauty Naturalized .1293.3.1 Mythologization of Nature for Self-Transcendence .1293.3.2 Immobility as Alternative to Transience .1374. ROMANTIC MYTHOGRAPHY IN THE POETRY OFSHELLEY AND KEATS .1434.1 Reconstruction of the Daemonic .1454.1.1 Reconstruction of the She-Monster .1474.1.1.1 The Witch Unwitched: The Divine Witchof Shelley’s The Witch of Atlas .1474.1.1.2 The Sympathetic and Beautiful Serpentof Keats’s Lamia .156x

4.1.2 The Sublime Daemon of Shelley’s The Daemon ofthe World .1664.2 Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound: Prometheus, Re-Enactingthe Biblical Story of Genesis, the Unbounding Fighter forFreedom .1744.3 Immobility, Beauty, Truth and History in Keats’sHyperion: A Fragment .1884.4 Endymion: “Where Do Beauty and Joy Reside?” .1985CONCLUSION .215BIBLIOGRAPHY .225APPENDICESA. TURKISH SUMMARY.234B. VITA .251xi

CHAPTER IINTRODUCTIONMetaphor and myth have always been of central concern in the study ofEnglish romantic poetry. However, there has been no detailed study on themetaphorical nature of the myth and the mythical nature of the metaphor inRomantic poetry. Such philosophers as Giambattista Vico, Immanuel Kant, JeanJacques Rousseau and Gottfried Herder prepared a philosophical background forunderstanding metaphor and myth as two faces of the same coin. Vico, Rousseauand Herder argued that metaphor and myth were modes of expression for thepoetic imagination of primitive man in ‘the state of nature’ (to use Rousseau’sterminology) and Kant suggested that metaphor and myth were cognitive actsthrough which imagination expresses itself when confronted with the ‘sublime’and the ‘beautiful.’ One common point in the ideas of these philosophers was thatthey saw metaphor and myth as the subject’s expression of its vigorous andcreative imagination and thought that the object of perception is assimilated,absorbed and re-created by the subject via metaphor and myth in the act ofperception. These ideas rejected such distinctions as subject and object andmetaphorical and literal because what the realist or materialist philosophers call‘object’ and ‘literal’ are indivisible aspects of the metaphorizing andmythologizing acts of perception. The difference between these ideas was thatwhile Kant presented metaphor as a mode of expression for the imagination ofevery subject, Vico, Rousseau and Herder limited it to the life of the primitive manliving in the state of nature and argued that such distinctions as metaphorical andliteral began with the emergence of logical/abstract thinking in civilized society.1

The ideas of these philosophers had a direct influence on the formation ofromantic poetics. They were even carried a step further with the ideas of suchromantic poets as William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Percy ByssheShelley and John Keats. These poets underlined the crucial function of the humanmind in the perception of ‘objective reality’ and its capability of changing and recreating this reality. However, while they sometimes—especially Coleridge andShelley—focused on the extraordinary and transcendental power of theimagination, they sometimes—especially Wordsworth, Keats and, again,Shelley—focused on the imagination’s faculty of metaphorization andmythologization of phenomena. Among these poets, Wordsworth, similar to Vico,Rousseau and Herder, took metaphor and myth as inherent characteristics of achild’s or a primitive person’s perception of nature, which Wordsworth most ofthe time mythologizes as a mother figure rearing the poetic imagination of ‘herchild.’ The common point between these poets was their conceiving the subject, itsmind and imagination at the center of human perception and poetic creation, andtheir rejection of such distinctions as subject-object and metaphorical-literal. Fromtheir ideas it can be concluded that they also conceived myth in the same terms asmetaphor and saw it as a metaphorical utterance re-created and manipulated by thepoet’s imagination.This study contends that a detailed understanding of metaphor and mythand their interconnectedness also requires a study of modern theories of myth andmetaphor. The above-mentioned ideas caused a great change in the conception ofmetaphor and myth; they prepared a ground for the demolition of the distinctionbetween subject and object and metaphorical and literal. They did this by seeingthe object as submitted to the subject and by establishing metaphor as the solemode of expression for the subject. However, they did not bring forth a newterminology that would replace these distinctions, and they did not give an answerto the question of ‘meaning’ – that is, whether metaphor had a ‘meaning’ of itsown or whether there was necessarily a stable literal meaning behind it. Besides,although they suggested that metaphor should be taken on a discourse level rather2

than on a word level (Vico defined metaphor as ‘miniature fable’), they did notpresent any detailed study of metaphor on these terms. Likewise, although theyhad some suggestions about myth, their ideas were not directly focused on myth.Modern theories of metaphor and myth can fill in some of the gaps in these ideasand make a comprehensive study of metaphor and myth in romantic poetrypossible.1.1 Modern Theories of Metaphor and MythModern theories have approached metaphor from different angles. Whilesome have employed a cognitive or linguistic perspective, others have approachedit in terms of the relationship between the addresser and addressee; likewise, whilesome have seen it as an illocutionary act representing the speaker’s (the subject’s)voice, others have discussed whether it should be taken on the word or discourselevels. However, the common point in all these theories is that there is a tendencyin them either to reject or to re-define the metaphorical-literal distinction, to takemetaphor either as having a meaning of its own or as an ‘extension’ of a somewhat‘literal’ meaning, and to see its relation to the objects in natural phenomena asarbitrary and relative.One of the most outstanding modern theorists of metaphor is I.A. Richards.Richards relies on the romantic idea of metaphor in that he sees metaphor on thelevel of discourse rather than on the word or sentence level and rejects adistinction between subject and object, the human mind and reality, language andreality and thus between ‘the literal and ‘the metaphorical.’ In “The Philosophy ofRhetoric” I. A. Richards argues that all ‘meanings’ are universally relative, onlyappropriate to and valid in the cultural context in which they occur; “any part of adiscourse, in the last resort, does what it does only because the other parts of thesurrounding, uttered or unuttered discourse, and its conditions are what they are”(10). For Richards, metaphor is not, as traditional views have conceived it, “a sortof happy extra trick with words a grace or ornament or added power oflanguage” (49). He criticizes this idea and, quoting Shelley and Jeremy Bentham,3

he argues that “language is vitally metaphorical” because “the mind and its entiredoings are fictions.” On this ground, language is not the ‘dress’ of thought; it is thecreator of thought.The theory of metaphor should, then, for Richards, be reformulated.Richards states that a first step for this is to introduce two technical terms: the‘tenor’ and the ‘vehicle’ (“The Philosophy of Rhetoric” 53). These terms arepresented to replace such terms as ‘the original idea’ and ‘the borrowed one,’‘what is really being said or thought of’ and ‘what it is compared to,’ ‘theunderlying idea’ and ‘the imagined nature.’ Terms that reject such categorizationare needed. Richards presents the terms tenor and vehicle for this purpose. He says,“we need the word metaphor for the whole double unit, and to use it sometimes forone of the two components in separation from the other is as injudicious as thatother trick by which we use ‘the meaning’ here sometimes for the work that thewhole double unit does and sometimes for the other component – the tenor, as Iam calling it – the underlying idea or principal subject which the vehicle or figuremeans”. To use a linguistic terminology, vehicle is the ‘global’ meaning and tenorthe ‘underlying idea’ or principle subject which the vehicle means.Richards argues that tenor and vehicle interact in the production ofmeaning. Their co-presence results in a meaning which is not attainable withouttheir interaction. As opposed to the traditional view, vehicle is not a mereembellishment of a tenor; they are in co-operation and interaction. At one extreme,the tenor may become a mere embellishment for the vehicle.What is noteworthy in Richards’ view is that he sees the relation ofmetaphor to the objects in natural phenomena as arbitrary. In The Meaning ofMeaning he states, “between the symbol and the referent there is no relevantrelation other than the indirect one” (11). If, as already has been said, according toRichards, all language is metaphorical, the indirect relationship between thesymbol and the referent suggests that language does not necessarily denote objectsand this puts into question the idea of ‘literal meaning’ in language, which isclaimed to directly denote the object of perception. Thus, employing such a view,4

Richards rejects the presence of such thing as ‘literal’ and tries to replace theliteral-metaphorical distinction with ‘vehicle’ and ‘tenor,’ both of which beingcomponents of the metaphor. Besides, he sees metaphor, as the romantics did, asclosely related to the subject that uses it and he imbues this subject with aprivileged role in its relation to the ‘object.’Like Richards, Harries also handles metaphor on the discourse level, but,unlike him, he focuses rather on the problem of referentiality in metaphor. In hisarticle “Metaphor and Transcendence” Harries questions ideas of unity and selfsufficiency in metaphor and argues that through metaphor a poem alwaystranscends itself and refers to texts, concepts, entities and objects beyond itself.Harries stresses the paradoxical relationship between the poet’s effort to achieveunity in his work of art and the inevitable use of metaphor. What makes tive,referentialandtranscendental nature of metaphor and the poet’s constant effort for selfsufficiency.Harries argues that

romantic poets as William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Percy Bysshe Shelley and John Keats. These poets underlined the crucial function of the human mind in the perception of ‘objective reality’ and its capability of changing and re-creating this reality. However, while they sometimes—especially Coleridge and

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