| C. Lewis said,“metaphor is the life of poems, the main text and glory of poets.Without metaphor, neither can poems exit”. As the typical school of poetry, symbolicpoems are prevalent with metaphors. These metaphors possess some typical properties ofthe poetic metaphor. However, the previous studies on properties of poetic metaphor aremostly from the perspective of linguistics, rarely from philosophy of language, makingthem lack interdisciplinary studies. This paper intends to conduct an interdisciplinarystudy on the seldom studied properties of poetic metaphor as well as the philosophicalbasis on which the properties can manifest themselves on the symbolic poems.Throughout the study, exemplified by Flowers of Evil, the author will address thequestions of what are the typical properties of poetic metaphors of symbolic poems; howsymbolic poems manifest the typical properties of poetic metaphors from the perspectiveof the philosophy of language; what are the internal relationship between the fiveproperties; and what is the philosophical basis of the poetic metaphors in symbolism.The research is supported by the conceptual metaphor theory and philosophy oflanguage. Conceptual metaphor theory regards metaphor as a systematic mapping from aconcrete conceptual domain to an abstract conceptual domain; symbolic poems advocatesthere is a corresponding relation between the poet’s subtle and abstract emotions and theconcrete images and objects. So it is proper to apply CMT to the study of the typicalproperties of poetic metaphors in symbolic poems. In addition, scholars of cognitivelinguistics and philosophy of language (e.g., Geng2007, Cassirer, Vico, Condorcet, Seale,Lakoff and Johnson, etc) have made a large number of studies on poetic metaphor and itsproperties. So the paper also refers to their masterpieces and quotes many statements.The study is exemplified by Flowers of Evil, the representative poetry of Baudelairewho is a pioneer of French symbolism. Flowers of Evil contains129poems and deals withabstract concepts like “evil”,“time”,“beauty”,“death”,“accident”,“anger”,“hatred”,making it enriched in various metaphors and an ideal and precious material for study. Sothis study will be exemplified by Flowers of Evil.The research method of this paper is qualitative analysis. First, a hypothesis is put up forward, i.e. poetic metaphor in symbolic poems is imaginal, affective, transcendental,sympathetic and symbolic. Then, exemplified by the symbolic poetry of Baudelaire andbased on CMT and philosophy of language, a detailed analysis is conducted to verify thecorrectness of the assumption. Finally, the conclusion is reached that the phenomenon thatpoetic metaphors in symbolic poems are being imaginal, affective, transcendental,sympathetic and symbolic is resulted from the philosophical ideas of symbolic poets,which advocate “the unity of heaven and man” and “the likeliness between people andobjects”.With qualitative analysis, supported by conceptual metaphor theory and thephilosophy of language, and exemplified by Flowers of Evil, this research confirms thatthe poetic metaphors are imaginal, transcendental, emotional, sympathetic and symbolic,and that these five properties are well presented in Flowers of Evil as integration becausethe philosophical basis of “the unity of heaven and man” and “the likeliness betweenpeople and objects”.It is hoped that this study will convincingly illustrate the properties of poeticmetaphor in symbolic poems, give a profound philosophical explanation to the existenceof the properties, and reach a deeper understanding of the properties from the perspectiveof philosophy language. In addition, the author will be gratified that the study can pave away for further research on the properties of poetic metaphor in daily metaphoricallanguage, and enrich the finding of current metaphor study in cognitive linguistics, andarouse other researchers’ interest in further related study. |
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