Study of Metaphors in William Wordsworth’s Poetry from the Perspective of Cognitive Linguistics

Study of Metaphors in William Wordsworth’s Poetry from thePerspective of Cognitive LinguisticsAbstract:Metaphor has been regarded as an important device of the poetic imagination and the rhetorical flourish. Poets frequently use it not only to stimulate the readers to think and exercise their imagination, but also provoke a wide range of emotions. On the other hand, poetry is complex and difficult to comprehend due to the fact that poets frequently use metaphor to convey their thoughts, for metaphor has various interpretations.This paper intends to explore how William Wordsworth uses metaphors on her poems, and convey his feelings and thoughts about nature, and how metaphor enhances our thought processes, and makes poetry exotic, quite interpretive and more enjoyable for readers.Key words: Cognitive Linguistics;Conceptual Metaphor;Poetry1 IntroductionLiterary texts are the products of both authors’cognizing minds and their interpretations, and the products of readers’cognizing minds. Margaret H. Freeman put forward a theory of cognitive poetics, which she believes it is a powerful tool for making explicit our reasoning processes and for illuminating the structure and content of literary texts. It provides a theory of literature that is both grounded in the language of literary texts and grounded in the cognitive linguistic strategies readers use to understand them. Cognitive poetics views poetry as a central, indispensable form of human language behavior. Metaphor is a necessary component of poetry. Undoubtedly metaphor is language, so we can use the cognitive theory to analyze metaphor in poetry and how poets find the materials of metaphor.Therefore in this thesis I will discuss the use of metaphor in William Wordsworth’poem I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud and to show how cognitive theory such as conceptual metaphor can be applied to this poem and illustrates how the poet use his cognition in creating metaphors and how the metaphors evoke the reader’s enjoyment and appreciation in the poem.2 Conceptual metaphorAmong the comprehensive literature on metaphor, the most famous one maybe Lakoff and Johnson’s conceptual metaphor theory. The publication of Metaphors WeLive By in 1980 marked the beginning of modern research on metaphor with a cognitive perspective.This book proposes the conceptual metaphor theory. Lakoff and Johnson claim that we frequently think about objects, properties, or relations in one domain (the target domain) by systematically mapping these onto objects and properties in another domain (the source domain). The correspondence relation between these domains constitutes a potentially large and organized conceptual metaphor, by means of one domain in terms of the other.3 Analysis of Metaphors in I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud from the perspective of Conceptual Metaphor Theory3.1 An introduction to WordsworthWordsworth is a great poet, a leading figure of the English Romanticism. He was born on April 17, 1770 in Cockermouth, Cumberland, in the Lake District into a family of an attorney. The natural beauty of the Lake District awoke in him a love and passion for the magnificent landscape and the childhood experience affected his mind and imagination deeply all his life. (夏尚立,72)In Wordsworth’s opinion, good poetry is th e spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings and it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.3.2Study of Wordsworth’s poetry applying Conceptual Metaphor TheoryTo a certain extent, poetry is about exemplifying ideas, thought, concepts and feelings. Though full of metaphors, the plot of the poem is still rather simple, and the poet’s passion and imagination flow out fluently and continuously in simple and concise language, leading us to a world of fantastic beauty. Wordsworth also believed it “an elementary feeling and simple expression”. Let’s analyse this metaphor emphasized again and again in this poem: Nature is a teacher.There are a lot of similarities between the Source Domain nature and the Target Domain teacher. Nature is the incarnation of order and civilization, which could save people from degradation; obviously nature has the cultivating function of a teacher. Furthermore, teacher is as pure, charming and refreshing as nature, which can be clarified as follows.Wordsworth, in the first stanza, shows us his lonely mood by using the word “wander” and by comparing himself to “cloud”. The poet by the use of a metaphor conveys to us his lonely and melancholy mood with the image of “a cloud that floats on high” for his in no rel ation to nature. The cloud to which the speaker compares himself is metaphorized by being given the human capabilities to feel lonely andsuperior.“I wondered lonely as a cloud” immediately establishesthe poet’s loneliness and melancholy. But in contrast with the poet’s loneliness, the daffodils are happy and dancing with life. Nature (the daffodils) is like an elder teacher who seems to be able to temper his temper properly and keep an easy condition of living and at the same time give the young some enjoyment to shine their lives. As soon as the poet sees daffodils, the symbol of nature, and finds himself in the midst of it, focusing on the “crowd” or “host of golden daffodils, no longer is the speaker distant, remote and aloof, accordingly his loneliness turns into relaxation and joy. It is the daffodils that bring great joy and relief to the poet. A teacher could also equal nature in this respect, for if you feel lonely, he would be with you talking you out of depression as an intimate coming back from far; if you are too pessimistic to live an enjoyable life, he will help you find out the reasons and make an active and promising plan as a result. And it is teachers who give us knowledge, the way to be a man and the laughter in and out of class.Though the charms of the daffodils vary through the poem, they are all expressed by metaphorical languages. The image “dance” is very impressive in the poem and these all show a beautiful serene of nature.The poet is greatly attracted by the beauty and richness of the daffodils and is not lonely any more. Now he has something to depend on in his heart and is completely reluctant to say goodbye, for the thousand times he turned his head to memorize it all. The poet could not but be gay because of the accompaniment of the beautiful nature. Therefore, the fare daffodils resemble a gifted teacher very much, who would like to recite a lyric before class passionately; who would tell a story to make the class more attractive; who could settle arguments and resolve problems skillfully; and who would be charming and talented to be his students’ idol. The daffodils are charming, and no doubt the same is true with a gifted teacher.At the very beginning, the poet is filled with solitude for having nothing to do with nature, and later this is eased by coming across a crowd of dancing and fluttering daffodils, the beautiful nature; and in the end for a second time the poet comes upon gloom, and is saved by the deposit of his happy experience of seeing the unforgettable daffodils, which eventually become his great wealth. Nature gradually come to be integral as the essential of one’s living without which a man would become out of focus, the same is true with teachers, without whom our lives would be lack of joys , goals and friends to help us.Pretty clearly we can say nature is a teacher after the analyses of the metaphors from the view of conceptual metaphor theory in this poem, and these poetic metaphors in the poem are the vivid reflections of the nature itself and haveconsiderable characteristics of the figure of a talented teacher.4 ConclusionIn the previous chapters, the thesis has attempted to study metaphors as a matter of thought and try to make clear the cognitive role of metaphor in William Wordsworth’s poems. The poet compared nature to a teacher to direct and save people. With this conceptual metaphor we can understand the real meaning that the poet wanted to express.In short, metaphors help the reader explore their inner feelings and emotions. Without metaphor poetry would be extremely shallow. Shallow poetry is perhaps one of the most purposeless forms of writing available. Metaphors are needed to add depth to poems. By using metaphor, poets can illuminate our experience, explore the consequences of our beliefs, challenge the ways we think, because metaphor is a primary tool for understanding our world and ourselves.Works Cited:[1]Fauconnier, Gilles. Mental Space[M] New York, Cambridge University Press, 1994.[2]F. Ungerer, H. J. Schmid. An Introduction to Cognitive Linguistics[M]. Beijing, Foreign LanguageTeaching and Research Press, 2008.[3]Lakoff, G, Johnson, M. 1980. Metaphors We Live By[M]. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.[4]束定芳.隐喻学研究[M]. 上海:上海外语教育出版社,2001.[5]王春.关于华兹华斯诗歌中自然主题的研究[M]. 西安外国语学院学报,2003(6).[6]吴伟仁.英国文学史及选读[M]. 北京:外语教学与研究出版社,1988.[7]夏尚立.英诗和英国诗人——从伊丽莎白时期到现代.北京:中国科学文化出版社,2005[8]谢之君.隐喻认知功能探索[J]. 上海:复旦大学出版社,2007.[9]赵艳芳.认知的发展与隐喻[J]. 外语与外语教学,1998(10): 8.[10]左金梅.英美浪漫主义诗歌概论与欣赏[J].青岛:中国海洋大学出版社,2006.。