| Figures of a Changing World: Metaphor and the Emergence of Modern Culture Contributor(s): Berger, Harry (Author) |
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ISBN: 0823257487 ISBN-13: 9780823257485 Publisher: Fordham University Press OUR PRICE: $19.00 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: March 2015 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Literary Criticism | Semiotics & Theory - Literary Criticism | Medieval - Literary Criticism | Renaissance |
| Dewey: 116 |
| LCCN: 2015288046 |
| Physical Information: 0.46" H x 6.65" W x 8.81" (0.67 lbs) 176 pages |
| Themes: - Chronological Period - Medieval (500-1453) |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Figures of a Changing World offers a dramatic new account of cultural change, an account based on the distinction between two familiar rhetorical figures, metonymy and metaphor. The book treats metonymy as the basic organizing trope of traditional culture and metaphor as the basic organizing trope of modern culture. On the one hand, metonymies present themselves as analogies that articulate or reaffirm preexisting states of affairs. They are guarantors of facticity, a term that can be translated or defined as fact-like-ness. On the other hand, metaphors challenge the similarity they claim to establish, in order to feature departures from preexisting states of affairs. On the basis of this distinction, the author argues that metaphor and metonymy can be used as instruments both for the large-scale interpretation of tensions in cultural change and for the micro-interpretation of tensions within particular texts. In addressing the functioning of the two terms, the author draws upon and critiques the work of Friedrich Nietzsche, Roman Jakobson, Christian Metz, Paul Ricoeur, Umberto Eco, Edmund Leach, and Paul de Man. |
Contributor Bio(s): Berger, Harry: - Harry Berger, Jr., is Professor Emeritus of Literature and Art History at the University of California, Santa Cruz. His most recent books include Figures of a Changing World: Metaphor and the Emergence of Modern Culture and A Fury in the Words: Love and Embarrassment in Shakespeare's Venice (both Fordham). Harry Berger, Jr., is Professor Emeritus of Literature and Art History and a Fellow of Cowell College at the University of California, Santa Barbara. A Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he is the author of fourteen books, most recently Harrying: Skills of Offense in Shakespeare's Henriad (Fordham, 2016). Berger, Harry: - Harry Berger, Jr., is Professor Emeritus of Literature and Art History at the University of California, Santa Cruz. His most recent books include Figures of a Changing World: Metaphor and the Emergence of Modern Culture and A Fury in the Words: Love and Embarrassment in Shakespeare's Venice (both Fordham). |