Shakespeare: Meaning & Metaphor

This elegantly argued book is the first to apply recent studies of metaphor within the fields of linguistics, psychology, anthropology, and philosophy, to English literary studies. The current explosion of interest in metaphor within these fields has as yet had little impact on the study of English literature, where a confused and impressionistic notion of "imagery" still reigns despite dissatisfaction with its lack of methodology and inappropriateness to certain texts. This book sets out to effect a meeting, or rather a series of meetings, between a powerfully metaphorical text -- the Shakespearean canon -- and a number of hte most advanced "extraliterary" theories of language and meaning.