Towards A Metaphorical Poetics

This thesis is a comprehensive study and an assessment of the poetry of T. S. Eliot, using as methodology the metaphorical theories established by Max Black, George Lakoff and G. Fauconnier, in combination with Levy-Bruhl's theory of primitive mentality and T. S. Eliot and F. H. Bradley's theory of immediate experience. By synthesizing these theories we contend that poetry and metaphor share the same origins and qualities: both are an indirect expression or an incarnation of a certain experience. To put it a more concrete way, before composing a poem, the poet intuitionally feels an immediate experience that marks off no distinction between subject and object with his metaphorical mentality, and when he starts to express this experience with words and images, it, affected by reason and logic, splits into subject and object, therefore, the poet is left no other way but to arrest or reflect this experience by such media as words and images. In the same development, the tenor and vehicle, the two constituents of a metaphor, come into existence and start the metaphorical activity. In this activity, the tenor and vehicle interact, inter-participate and close up to each other until they fuse into an integrity, binging about an emulative metaphorical meaning. In poetry, this metaphorical activity can be interpreted as a mental activity of the composing poet, the reader's self-negotiation in his reading process or an interaction between the poet and the reader.Before our general study of T. S. Eliot's poetry in such respects as language, images, allusions, fragments, archetypes, religions and cultures in accordance with the above-mentioned theories, we have made an epitomized summary of his poetical theory. Unlike our precursors who labeled Eliot's poetical theory "impersonal", we are here trying to epitomize his theory into "empirical", so as to integrate all the three phases of his poetical thinking. In our view, "impersonality" is actually a metaphorical expression that distinguishes itself from the Romanticists' direct voice of feelings by finding out an image or "Objective Correlative" that has a similarity or relevance to the experience to be expressed and projecting this experience on the image thus found out. Moreover, we believe this is the only way to integrate his two theories of "impersonality", both of which are a generalization of personal experiences.Words, allusions, images and fragments are not only components of poetry, but also the incarnation of experiences and the constituents of metaphors. In order to convey his conviction that our civilization comprises great variety and complexity, Eliot makes fragmentation and chaos the apparent characteristics of his poetry by a heterogeneous employment of these components, thus setting up a metaphorical relationship between the apparent features of poetry and the civilization (esp. the chaotic modem society) it is to indicate. Meanwhile, while retaining the meaning and even intonation of them in their original sources, these components are transformed in the creative metaphorical furnace and, after rearrangement, are used to denote new poetic meanings, that is to say, underneath the chaotic surface structure lies a deeper structure formed by metaphorical meaning. One of the major differences between the Modernist poetry and the Romantic and Realist poetry lies in that, in the former, the surface and deeper structures have an reverse and often ironic correlation, while in the latter, an obverse one. This difference results from their difference in world outlook and ways of experiencing the world: the Realists tend to write metonymically, while the Modernists metaphorically. In Eliot's poetry, metaphor is multi-strata, ranging from the surface stratum where allusions, images and fragments forming micro-metaphors to the deeper stratum where frameworks structured by mythic and religious archetypes and the external patterns constructed by words and images builds up structural metaphors. Metaphors on different stratums inter-participate and complete their metaphorical construction via the reader's reading and interpretation, thus forming a metaphorical integrity through such inter-participations.Therefore, the organic entirety of Eliot's poetry is the result of the functioning of metaphorical participation and construction. In the metaphorical process, as the metaphorical vehicle, the poetic elements are bereft of their original qualities and fused into an entirety because of their inter-influence and inter-participation, thus bringing a new metaphorical meaning into being. In other words, the three phases——the two metaphorical constituents and the metaphorical meaning——merge into a new whole and the poet's immediate experience is finally transformed into poetry. Similarly, as two kinds experiences, religions and cultures are also merged into an entirety on the higher level of "poetic wit" by the functioning of metaphorical inter-participation and construction, so that Eliot's ideal to construct the fragmented modern cultures into a cultural integrity can be brought into reality, and, at the same time, prepare the prerequisite for the creation and acceptance of an organic poetry.