Donald Davidsons What Metaphors Mean Essay -- Writing Literary Essays

Donald Davidsons What Metaphors MeanOur real(a) understandings of a word are twins in constant showdown with one another, twins in constant competition to receive the roughly love from their mother and father. Let us pretend the parents are the literary community that demonstrates love frequently by showing a preference for one of their twins. Donald Davidsons system expressed in What Metaphors Mean is a tragic, mind miscarriage it is a theory of language that brings forth a stillborn child, a dead metaphor.Do you see the candle there in the window? What does it mean to you, and is your understanding of its ordinary essence, its vocal error meaning, identical to tap? Davidson assumes we both clearly know and agree upon its actual meaning, that it is literally a cylindrical mass of tallow or wax with a wick with its center, which gives light when burned. Contrarily, however, I believe our understandings of a simple word give care candle ofttimes file for divorce because th ey cannot resist the semantic lure of what I metaphorically call literal-meaning infidelity. Metaphorical meaning is a ride object for literal meaning, and the mind of a creative artist, a devotee of humanities and poetry, is incapable of not pursing this with passion unleashed via creative language-libido. This kind of soulfulness has a mind fundamentally opposed to the Davidsonesque mind, a mind that is forever discovering (if he reads a book of prose or poetry) and inventing (if he writes with a write in his hand) the metaphorical connection with lust filled eyes.The above literal, dictionary definition of candle is not the first definition that enters my mind, I am afraid, and thus how can there only exist a literal surface meaning inside... ...rn to a state of mind that only acknowledges objective, literal meanings in spoken communication, denying language its graphic tendency of allowing meanings to evolve and expand. It is imperative for us, especially all poets and writers of prose that use language to express figurative meaning, to critique this theory because it only decreases creativity and denies that artist say anything beyond the literal with their words and metaphors. Davidsons ideas violently affront to the purpose of our craft. If we become completely dependent upon objective, literal meaning and learn to reject subjective, figurative meaning in words, we provide consequently become less human and more detached from the world, from our natural surroundings, from our fellow human beings, and from the spontaneous, creative voices deep in our guts that often speak of truths literal expression cannot capture.