LESSON PART I

WRITING METAPHORS

How to Create Metaphors

“Wit consists in knowing the resemblance of things that differ, and the difference of things that are alike.” – Madame de Staël

Madame de Staël’s insight is the key to writing metaphors, especially the first half of her observation: recognizing common ground between things that are usually viewed as different. Let’s explore how to find common ground between differing things. First, a definition. 

DEFINITION

A metaphor is a comparison between unlike things that share at least one common feature. Examples include “a blanket of snow” (that’s a “blanket” that won’t keep you warm! But, if no one walks on it, fresh fallen show looks like a white blanket lain over a lawn or field), “a river of tears,” “baking in the sun,” and “snowflakes dancing on the sidewalk.” Snowflakes can’t really dance, but they sometimes twirl in the air like dancers. This is the feature they have in common with dancers. [NOTE: Similes are types of metaphors. EXAMPLE: Jim, a 21-year-old man, is as strong as a bull. Jim and bulls are very different. Jim doesn’t have horns, hooves or a tail, but he shares one characteristic with bulls – strength. Stating that Jim is as strong as a bull enables us to picture his physical power.] In the play, Romeo compares Juliet metaphorically to the sun because, although her core temperature is not 27 million degrees Fahrenheit, she is bright, beautiful, and warm (or hot, if you prefer). Thus, she has several things in common with the sun. In Act II, Scene 2, glimpsing the beautiful Juliet at her balcony window, Romeo exclaims rapturously: 

ROMEO: But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?

                 It is the East, and Juliet is the sun!

In other words, the balcony window is like the East (light cuts through the window like dawn through darkness in the eastern sky) and Juliet is this light, looking as radiant as the rising sun. 

STEP 1

MAKE a LIST OF CHARACTERISTICS FOR TWO CHARACTERS IN THE PLAY (Juliet and Rosaline or Romeo and Paris), following the “Lord Capulet Model” below. Then make a second list of words you can associate with each of the characteristics. Finally make a third list of phenomena (for example, things in nature, mythological characters or events) that share one or more features with each characteristic in the first list and the associated words in the second list. (IN OUR EXAMPLE WE WILL FOCUS ON JUST ONE CHARACTERISTIC OF LORD CAPULET.)

PRACTICE EXERCISE 1: LORD CAPULET MODEL

LIST I – CHARACTERISTICS

LORD CAPULET:

1. changeable (early in the play he tells Paris that Juliet needs to wait two more years before she’s ready to marry; after Tybalt’s death, he demands Juliet wed Paris immediately)
2. hot-tempered
3. tyrannical toward women (Juliet, the nurse, and Lady Capulet)

LIST II – ASSOCIATED WORDS

1. Changeable: weather, the moon (changes shape), mercurial, capricious, impulsive
2. Tyrannical Toward Women: misogynist, male chauvinist, patriarchal, like King Creon in the play Antigone
3. Hot-Tempered: short-fused, irascible, explosive, combustible, like Mars (the Roman God of War), like a volcano, like Stromboli (an Italian volcano that erupts every 20 minutes!), volcanic

We will focus on Lord Capulet’s hot temper and the word “volcano.”

LIST III – VOLCANO-RELATED WORDS

Fiery, lava, hot ash, eruption, erupt(s),
spew(s), burning, crater, fissure, sulfurous,
extinct, active, combustible, Mount Etna, Stromboli…

STEP 2

We will add a metaphorical response at the end of the dispute between the Lord Capulet and the Nurse in Act III, Scene 5, using our lists. The nurse will describe Lord Capulet’s hot temper with a volcano metaphor. NOTE: WRITERS DO NOT USUALLY MAKE WRITTEN LISTS, THEY RUN THROUGH THE GAMUT OF ASSOCIATIONS IN THEIR HEADS; but for your first few attempts, making lists will help. Then we will work some of these volcano-related words into our metaphor.

Act III, Scene 5

Nurse:  God in heaven bless her!

              You are to blame, my lord, to rate her [Juliet] so.

Lord C: And why, my Lady Wisdom? Hold your tongue,

              Good Prudence. Smatter with your gossips, go!

Nurse: I speak no treason.

Lord C: O, God-i-god-en!

Nurse: May not one speak?

Lord C: Peace, you mumbling fool!

             Utter your gravity o’er a gossip’s bowl,

             For here we need it not.

Lady C: You are too hot.

Lord C: God’s bread! it makes me mad…

STEP 3

We create the nurse’s metaphor. Equating Lord Capulet’s BURST of anger to an ERUPTION is our first metaphor. Secondly, we’ll call his temper VOLCANIC, and we’ll equate his steady stream of SHOUTING to SPEWING LAVA. Since Lord Capulet’s anger seems to scald (another metaphor) all the women around him, we’ll extend the volcano metaphor and say he BURNS everyone one in his path – like the lava from an erupting volcano incinerates everything in its path.

We insert the nurse’s metaphorical reply here:

Nurse: This eruption of your volcanic temper, my lord,

             spews indiscriminately, burning everyone in its path!

After WRITING a few metaphors, READING them in literature will become easier and a lot more interesting.

PRACTICE EXERCISE 2: EXTENDED METAPHORS

An extended metaphor is a sustained or drawn-out metaphor like our volcano metaphor.

Notice that Shakespeare uses an extended (arrow) metaphor in the following exchange between Romeo and Benvolio.

Romeo:    In sadness, cousin, I do love a woman.

Benvolio:  I aimed so near when I supposed you loved.

Romeo:    A right good markman.  And she’s fair I love.

Benvolio:  A right fair mark, fair coz, is soonest hit.

Romeo:   Well, in that hit you miss. She’ll not be hit

                 With Cupid’s arrow. She hath Dian’s wit.

Write the above exchange in modern prose, then work back to the metaphors.

For example:

R: I love a woman.

B: I guessed as much

R: Your guess is right.  And she is beautiful.

B: A beautiful woman is the first to catch the eye of a man and win his love.

R:  Well, in this case you’re wrong. She doesn’t love me back. She knows

      how to dodge the arrows of Cupid and the eyes of a man.

Shakespeare either built his metaphor around arrows in general and then worked his way to “Cupid’s arrow,” or he had Cupid’s arrow in mind at the start and decided that the conversation would progress step by step, using an extended arrow metaphor to reveal that Rosaline doesn’t return Romeo’s love – she knows how to avoid Cupid’s arrows. To do this, Shakespeare had to make a list (probably a mental rather than a written list) of words related to shooting arrows:  aim, fire, marksman, target, bull’s eye, etc. Then he replaced simple, straight-forward words like “guessed” with arrow-related words. Instead of “guessed” Benvolio says “aimed” (that was what I was aiming at).  Instead of “woman” or “girl,” Benvolio says “mark” (target – the target of your love, or love’s arrows). Then, since Romeo states that the woman he loves is “fair” or beautiful, Benovolio say Rosaline is a “fair mark” or “pretty target,” rather than a beautiful woman. He also states that hunters (marksmen) will aim at attractive targets – like a buck with six points (six horns) rather than a deer with just two points. Romeo continues the witty exchange with an ironic twist, saying that Benvolio’s “hit” or “correct guess,” while true in general, misses the mark in the case of Rosaline. She is a fair mark, but Cupid cannot “hit” her with one of his arrows. Like the virgin Roman goddess Diana, she is invulnerable to love’s arrows.

PRACTICE EXERCISE 3:  EXTENDED METAPHORS CONTINUED

As stated above, when Romeo spots Juliet at her balcony window, she looks divine to him, like a goddess. “Like a goddess” is a simile, but not a very good one. Naturally Shakespeare beefs up the goddess/god connection (beefs up is a metaphor – meaning strengthens it , make it huskier like a cow). Of course he chooses a radiant god to whom Romeo can compare Juliet, the god of the Sun, Helios or Apollo. Since it’s night time, Juliet becomes the rising sun (a sun that rises in the middle of the night – imagine how extraordinary that would be, how glorious!). Then, since Romeo used to have a crush on Rosaline, Shakespeare has him indirectly compare Juliet to Rosaline. To do this, Romeo compares the sun to a weaker night light, the moon – Rosaline pales (like the moon) next to the Sun (Juliet). Could Shakespeare have had other reasons for equating Rosaline to the Moon? What else does Rosaline have in common with the moon and the Roman goddess of the moon, Diana? How does Shakespeare further extend this metaphor? Quote the lines in the play that continue this metaphor.

PRACTISE EXERCISE 4:

For 10 points:

• Make a list of Tybalt’s or the Nurse’s main characteristics.
• Write a second list of words you can associate with each characteristic in the first list.
• Select a scene in which Tybalt or the Nurse appears and write a new line for your character to speak.
• Next, choose a characteristic and associated word from your second list to build your metaphor around.
• Then make a third list of words related to your “associated word” and the characteristic to which it’s related (as we did above with “volcano”).
• Next, transform part of your character’s new speech into a metaphor as we have done in the example above.
• Finally, make sure that your new line fits well into the scene you have chosen to modify.

Once you’ve successfully completed these exercises, you will be ready to write metaphors for your Juliet/Rosaline or Romeo/Paris scene in the style of Shakespeare.

EXTRA CREDIT OPTION: (Teachers may want to give extra credit for writing a metaphor that straddles disciplines.)

Interdisciplinary Metaphors

Since NEXUS is INTERDISCIPLINARY you may want to use a topic from another subject area – art, science, history, geography, or music – in your metaphor. Shakespeare creates interdisciplinary metaphors in some of his plays. For example, Romeo compares his passion for Juliet to that of a 16th-century explorer seeking El Dorado, the mythical Land of Gold (a geography/history metaphor). Around the time Shakespeare was writing Romeo and Juliet in 1595, Sir Walter Raleigh sailed to the New World seeking El Dorado – big news in England at the time!

ACT II, Scene 2, Lines 87-89

ROMEO: I am no pilot; yet wert thou as far

                 As that vast shore washed with the farthest sea,

                 I should adventure for such merchandise.

In another Shakespeare play, The Winter’s Tale, Shakespeare mentions Giulio Romano, a great Italian painter who executed most of his work in Mantua, the city to which Romeo flees after his banishment. [Giulio Romano was hired by the Marquis of Mantua in 1524.]

In The Winter’s Tale Shakespeare writes: That “rare Italian master, Julio Romano, who, had he himself eternity and could put breath into his work, would beguile nature of her custom, so perfectly he is her ape.” Act V, Scene 2.

[NOTE: Shakespeare changes the “G” in the Italian name Giulio to a “J.” In Italian Juliet is Giulietta.]

You might have Paris compare Juliet to a Giulio Romano masterpiece. Look up paintings by this Mannerist artist at the Web Gallery of Art website: www.wga.hu. Artists are listed alphabetically in this site. Giulio Romano is listed under G not R.

You might have Paris or Romeo compare Juliet (or even Rosaline) to a beautiful Giulio Romano madonna (under “miscellaneous paintings” in the Giulio Romano section of the www.wga.hu site).

OR – Perhaps one of your characters can compare the Capulet/Montague feud to Giulio Romano’s famous mural of the fall of the giants in Palazzo Te in Mantua. In this mural, giants, after losing their war with Zeus and the Olympians, tumble from the sky into a room in Palazzo Te that Giulio Romano painted to appear like it’s crumbling – see Sala dei Giganti (Room of the Giants) at www.wga.hu).

Mantua’s other great artist of course is Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1516). Da Vinci was born outside of Florence near the town of Vinci, but at age 30 he was hired by the Duke of Mantua, known as El Moro, and created many great works in that city, including The Last Supper. Perhaps Paris can compare Juliet to a Da Vinci painting.  Again use www.wga.hu for a survey of Leonardo’s masterpieces and look under “L.”

YOU CAN CHOOSE ANY PAINTER, EVEN A MODERN ONE, BUT SINCE THE PLAY IS SET IN ITALY DURING THE RENAISSANCE, IT MIGHT BE MORE APPROPRIATE TO SELECT ONE OF THE GREAT ITALIAN RENAISSANCE MASTERS. There are many from which to choose. For a quick, reader friendly introduction to Italian Renaissance, Mannerist and Baroque artists refer to Art History For Dummies, written by the founder and editor of NEXUS: https://www.dummies.com/store/product/Art-History-For-Dummies.productCd-0470099100,navId-322429.html. Or check out Art For Dummies by Thomas Hoving, the former director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City: https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/art-for-dummies_thomas-hoving/253803/?

LESSON PART II

WRITING ANTITHESES

Samples of ANTITHESES (or WORD EQUATIONS. We use this term because it emphasizes that an antithesis is a balanced statement (“my only love sprung from my only hate”) like an equation is a balanced mathematical expression (2y + 5x = 5x + 2y).

WITH YOUR WORD PROCESSOR (or highlighters and paper) USE THE FOLLOWING COLOR CODING SYSTEM TO IDENTIFY THE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN THE WORDS IN WORD EQUATIONS (antitheses).

Repeated Words = blue

Opposites = red

Contrasts (that are not also opposites) = green

Word Families or Sister Words (words with a common root: look(s), looked, looking; therapy, therapist, therapeutic, etc.) = orange

Related Words (related in some other way than family, e.g., grudge and mutiny are both related to anger) = purple.

EXAMPLES:

PROLOGUE, Lines 3-4

From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,

where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.

ACT I, SCENE 2 – LineS 30 34

LORD CAPULET: Hear all, all see.

ACT I, SCENE 5, Lines 140-141

JULIET: My only love sprung from my only hate

              too early seen unknown, and known too late.

ACT II, CHORUS, Lines 1-2

Now old desire doth in his deathbed lie,

And young affection. gapes to be his heir.

ACT II, SCENE 2

ROMEO: My life were better ended by their hate

                 Than death proroguèd, wanting of thy love.

TYPE THE FOLLOWING PASSAGES THEN COLOR-CODE THEM.

ACT II, SCENE 3, Lines 9-10

FRIAR: The earth that’s nature’s mother is her tomb

             And what is her burying grave, that is her womb.

ACT II, SCENE 6, Line 9

FRIAR:   These violent delights have violent ends

ACT II, SCENE 6, Line 66

JULIET: My dearest cousin and my dearer lord

ACT III, SCENE 3, Line 112

FRIAR:  Unseemly woman in a seeming man!

ACT III, SCENE 5, Lines 207-210

JULIET: My husband is on earth, my faith in heaven.

              How shall that faith return again to earth

              Unless that husband send it me from heaven

              By leaving earth?

TASK:

1. Before attempting to develop antitheses of your own, WRITE the first draft of what you want your characters (Rosaline and Juliet in the GIRL TALK lesson or Romeo and Paris in the GUY TALK lesson) to say in everyday modern English as in the model below.
2. Then UNDERLINE the NOUNS, VERBS, and MODIFIERS that you might use in your antitheses as shown in the example BELOW in blue. DO NOT use all the nouns, verbs and modifiers. Be selective.
3. MAKE three LISTS, one for the verbs, nouns, pronouns, and modifiers; a second list for the opposites of the words in the first list; and a third for synonyms of words in the first list and other related or sister words (YOU MAY USE AN ONLINE or OFFLINE THESAURUS). Either list the words in three separate columns or follow the method we’ve used in the example below.
4. Then, using the model, REWRITE your first draft combining some of the words in your lists into WORD EQUATIONS (antitheses) in the style of Shakespeare. NOTE: Shakespeare often connects his opposing pairs with a repeated modifier as in “civil blood makes civil hands unclean” or “these violent delights have violent ends” so that the statement is balanced with both a contrast (blood – hands) and a connection (civil – civil) – in a WORD EQUATION. The connection can be a repeated word or a related word. Sometimes Shakespeare pairs (CONNECTS) contrasting adjectives (which in this case are opposites) – like old and young – with related words (desire and affection) as in the first lines in Act II:

Chorus: Now old desire doth in his deathbed lie,

               And young affection gapes to be his heir.

NOTE: “Deathbed” and “heir” are also contrasts; the first refers to death, the latter to the continuation of life.

TIP:  You should not use all the words in your lists, and you can add words that are not in the lists. The purpose of the lists is to serve as a guide and to get you thinking in terms of opposites and related words so that it’s easier for you to pair words into WORD EQUATIONS in your sentences.  What you are learning and practicing is a common rhetorical device that writers, politicians, and even advertisers have been using for centuries. (Find examples of antithesis in Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address and in Martin Luther King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”)

EXAMPLE:

STEPS 1 & 2

1. ROSALINE: Can you believe that intruder last night, our family’s sworn enemy, Romeo, coming to your father’s feast and concealing his hated identity behind a mask? He didn’t even have the courage to show his face.
2. JULIET: He was courageous to come.  Although it’s a shame that he hid such a handsome face behind a mask. But doesn’t it please you a little that such a good looking guy risked his life to see you?
3. ROSALINE: I was a little flattered, but not much. And yet he didn’t even try to speak to me, he spoke exclusively to you.
4. JULIET: He talked to me only to ask about you. [NOTE: This is already an antithesis.]
5. ROSALINE: Oh, really. What did he ask? Nevermind, I don’t care. You were awfully friendly with him. You seemed to welcome him.
6. JULIET: Friar Lawrence says we must love our enemies. That’s the only reason I was nice to a Montague.

STEP 3
VERBS

1. BELIEVE: (opposite) DOUBT, DISBELIEVE; (synonyms & sister words) DEEM, HAVE FAITH IN, BELIEVES, BELIEVING, BELIEVED
2. COMING: (opposite) GOING, LEAVING; (synonyms & sister words) ARRIVING, ENTERING, COME, COMES, CAME
3. CONCEALING: (opposite) REVEALING, SHOWING, EXPOSING; (synonyms/sister words) HIDING, CONCEAL, CONCEALS, CONCEALED
4. SHOW: (opposite) CONCEAL, HIDE, MASK; (synonyms/sister words) REVEAL, EXPOSE, DEMONSTRATE, SHOWS, SHOWING, SHOWN
5. HID: (opposite) SHOW, DISPLAY, REVEAL; (synonyms/sister words) SHROUD, CAMOUFLAGE, OBSCURE, VEIL, HIDE, HIDES, HIDING, HIDDEN
6. PLEASE: (opposite) DISPLEASE, DISTURB, BOTHER, UPSET; (synonyms & sister words) SATISFY, PLEASES, PLEASING, PLEASED
7. RISK: (opposite) PLAY IT SAFE, TO CAUTION, TO PROTECT, TO SAFEGUARD; (synonym/sister words) TO TAKE A CHANCE, TO GAMBLE, HAZARD, RISKS, RISKING, RISKED
8. FLATTERED: (opposite) INSULTED, CRITICIZED, CONDEMNED, CASTIGATED; (synonym/sister words) ADULATE, BLANDISH, COMPLIMENT, FLATTER, FLATTERS, FLATTERING
9. LOVE: (opposite) HATE, DESPISE, DETEST; (synonyms & sister worlds) ADORE, CHERISH, WORSHIP, LOVES, LOVING, LOVED
10. SPEAK: (opposite) BE SILENT, SHUT UP; (synonyms/sister words) TALK, EXPRESS, SPEAKS, SPEAKING, SPOKE
11. ASK: (opposite) ANSWER, DON’T ASK, DON’T QUESTION; (synonyms/sister words) QUESTION, QUERY, ASKS, ASKING, ASKED
12. WELCOME: (opposite) UNWELCOME, REJECT, SPURN; (synonym/sister words) GREET, RECEIVE, EMBRACE, WELCOMES, WELCOMING, WELCOMED

NOUNS

1. INTRUDER: (opposite) GUEST; (synonym/sister words) INVADER, GATE-CRASHER, INTERLOPER, TRESPASSER, INTRUDERS
2. NIGHT: (opposite) DAY; (synonyms/sister words) EVENING, DUSK, NIGHTFALL, TWILIGHT
3. ENEMY: (opposite) ALLY, FRIEND; (synonyms/sister words) ADVERSARY, FOE, OPPONENT, ENEMIES
4. IDENTITY: (opposite) INCOGNITO, DISGUISE; (synonyms/sister words) CHARACTER, NAME
5. MASK: (opposite) TRUE FACE; (synonyms/sister words) DISGUISE, CAMOUFLAGE, MASKS
6. FACE: (opposite) BACK, REAR; (synonyms/sister words) VISAGE, FRONT, LOOKS, FEATURES, PHYSIOGNOMY, APPEARANCE, FACES
7. LIFE: (opposite) DEATH, DEMISE; (synonyms/sister words) EXISTENCE, SURVIVAL, LIVES
8. COURAGE: (opposite) COWARDICE, FEAR; (synonyms/sister words) BRAVERY, BOLDNESS, GUTS
9. A LITTLE: (opposite) A LOT, MUCH; (synonyms/sister words) A BIT, A TINY AMOUNT, NOT MUCH

MODIFIERS

1. COURAGEOUS: (opposite) COWARDLY, TIMID, SHY; (synonyms/sister words) BOLD
2. HATED: (opposite) LOVED, ADORED, REVERED; (synonyms/sister words) DESPISED, DETESTED
3. GOOD LOOKING: (opposite) UNATTRACTIVE, PLAIN; (synonyms/sister words) HANDSOME, ATTRACTIVE
4. LAST: (opposite ) FIRST, DEBUT, INITIAL; (synonyms/sister words) FINAL
5. FRIENDLY: (opposite ) COLD, INDIFFERENT, DISAGREEABLE, UNFRIENDLY, ANTAGONISTIC; (synonyms/sister words) AMIABLE, AMICABLE, CONGENIAL, CORDIAL, GENIAL
6. NICE: (opposite ) MEAN, UNKIND; (synonyms/sister words) KIND, POLITE, PLEASANT, FRIENDLY, GRACIOUS

STEP 4)

1. ROSALINE: Can you believe that cowardly Montague intruder showing up at our feast, hidden by a mask?
2. JULIET: Showing up masked shows some courage ; revealing his face in such a company would show want of wit. But it's reported that he's extremely handsome; therefore by wearing a mask he slyly hides what he should proudly show . You hate him not because of what he is but because of who he is.  I share your feelings. Yet aren't you a little pleased by a man who does so much to please you?
3. ROSALINE: Usually, a man who tries to please too much , pleases little . But I noticed that he stopped seeking me after seeing you.
4. JULIET: He talked to me only to ask about you.
5. ROSALINE: Well, you seemed to treat this unwelcome enemy as a welcome friend .
6. JULIET:  Friar Lawrence counsels us to love our enemies. And for this reason I must love the man I hate .

Lesson Part III

WRITING PUNS

“Puns are the highest form of literature.” – Alfred Hitchcock

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