Peter Shaffer’s Metaphor In The "Trilogy Of Belief"

Western literature developed into the 1950s and 1960 s.After the upsurge of Angry Drama represented by Osborne and Absurd Drama represented by Beckett surged,many excellent playwrights emerged one after another,of which Britain became the theatrical activity center at that time.Peter Shaffer(1926-2016)is one of the best.His plays,whether ideological,artistic or theatrical,have reached a new height and achieved double harvest in both literary and commercial aspects.This paper takes Peter Shaffer’s representative works "The Trilogy of Searching for Belief"-The Royal Sun Hunt,Ikus(also known as Madness of Equine or Horse)and God’s Beloved(also known as Death of Mozart or Amadeus as the research objects,and makes a thorough and detailed analysis of the text.In terms of research angle and method,this paper intends to interpret these three works from the perspective of metaphor.Firstly,it analyses the metaphorical manifestations in the works,including figure metaphor,image metaphor and plot metaphor,and restores the characters in the plays to two categories of "madness" and "civilization".By choosing the three images of the sun,horse and God,it will make modern people confused in spirit,lose their beliefs and seek for them.Freedom melts into the drama.Secondly,it analyses the characteristics of metaphors in these works,including repeated narration and dream writing,which express the spiritual crisis of the characters in the repeated discourse,and highlight the questioning of the existing order in the deep dreams of the subconscious.Finally,it summarizes the literary value behind metaphor in Peter Shaffer’s plays,that is,the ideological,defamiliarization and aesthetic experience of his works.Metaphor,as a means of expression to enhance the connotation of text,has not only existed as a rhetorical device,but also has been endowed with some other functions by scholars after thousands of years of development.The reason why Peter Shaffer’s plays are highly ideological is the use of metaphor.In his works,he reveals the temptation of material desire to human beings,the alienation of modern civilization to human beings,the enslavement of the world order to human beings and the resistance of human beings to God as the absolute spirit from his unique perspective.Metaphor has become a part of Peter Shaffer’s plays and permeates all aspects of the text.