Abstract:
Metaphor is an ancient concern of poets, philosophers, rhetoricians and historians as well as speakers and audience, writers and readers. Metaphor was, among the ancient Greeks, something important to poetics, rhetoric, philosophy and politics. Since the Greeks, metaphor has become a topic of many coats: in recent decades, there have been studies of metaphor in chess, cognition, cognitive science, psychoanalysis, psycholinguistics, psychology, linguistics, organizational behaviour, education and much else in actual, fictional and virtual worlds. This lecture contextualizes a few aspects of this metaphorical explosion of metaphor, especially in the last century or so, by discussing classical, medieval and nineteenth century views. Before I focus on Paul Ricœur, I discuss Plato, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas and G. W. F. Hegel to help us to see the outlines of metaphor and the critical and theoretical issues arising subsequently down to the present age. The nub of the matter is whether metaphor helps us get at the core of philosophy, that is truth, justice and beauty, the good life, or whether it deflects or deludes or both. Northrop Frye and others will contextualize some current and recent views of metaphor, including that of Ricœur. The sharp focus is on whether metaphor is good or bad or both and on the tensions among fields of knowledge such as poetry, philosopher and rhetoric. The lecture concentrates first on the traces, ghosts and hauntings of Plato and Aristotle on metaphor in texts now and will then discuss other texts to understand the ground of metaphor.

Biography:

Jonathan Locke Hart is a literary scholar, historian and writer. Until this year, he was Chair Professor of the School of Translation Studies, and Director, International Cooperation Centre for Cross-Cultural Studies and Digital Humanities, Shandong University, where he is now an Honorary Professor. He is also Senior Fellow, Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, Victoria College, University of Toronto; Associate, Harvard University Herbaria; and Life Member, Clare Hall, University of Cambridge. He has written over thirty books and written over 100 articles and essays, and has held visiting appointments at Harvard, Cambridge, Princeton, the Sorbonne-Nouvelle (Paris III), Leiden, UC Irvine, Peking University and elsewhere and has given classes, talks, readings and lectures internationally. His poetry and scholarship have been translated into Chinese and other languages (for example, his poetry in Collection of Jonathan Locke Hart (Six Volumes), Shanghai Jiao Tong University Press, 2021). He was made Distinguished Fellow, Choi Kai Yau College, University of Macau in 2019.