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The present paper is the summary of my views on imaginative symbols in the aspects of their semantic structure and conceptual transpositions in them. As was defined in one of my earlier works, symbol is a multi-notion conventional sign which represents, apart from its inherent and immediate designatum, an essentially different, usually more abstract designatum, connected with the former by a logical link. (Shelestiuk 1997: 125)1
However, it is also true for significative (conceptual, meaningful) images of philosophical and allegorical poetry, which appear as specific units of thinking and are apt to be confused with symbols. As with symbols, the tenor of such a metaphor is an abstract notion, and the vehicle is realistic, tangible. Moreover, it may be the only image in a poetic picture. Even so, we are well aware of the fact that that image is unrealistic, imaginary, and it is proper to call it a metaphor, rather than a symbol.
For example, in the proem to Theodore Roethke’s ‘Open House’ we find the conceptually fraught notion of an ‘open house’ (for the full text see (Ellmann 1973: 753)). Let us ascertain whether it is a symbol or a metaphor in that particular case. The contexts: ‘my secrets cry aloud’, ‘my heart keeps open house, my doors are widely swung’, ‘an epic of my eyes - my love, with no disguise’ describe the tenors – ‘secrets’, ‘heart’, ‘eyes’, ‘love’, and more generally, the referent - the poetic hero. The implicit personified vehicles who cry aloud, keep an open house with widely swung doors and relate an epic are clearly imaginary, while the hero, his body and his emotions are realistic. Since the ‘open house’ is one of the unrealistic images, though the central one in the proem, it follows that it is a metaphor rather than a symbol. It should be pointed out, however, that as the poem develops, this image already occurs in the capacity of symbol.
One more example. In the above-mentioned poem ‘The Thought-Fox’ by Ted Hughes, the fox and a number of subsidiary images (‘this midnight moment's forest, something else is alive, a fox's nose touches twig, leaf’, etc.) form a poetic picture. Their figurative meanings with abstract designata – creative thought, approach of inspiration - are not explicit, but implied. Yet, inspiration here is realistic, and the image of the fox is unrealistic, imaginary: note the lexical marker ‘I imagined’ and the lexico-semantic marker, the binary metaphor ‘(it enters) the dark hole of the head’. Inasmuch as the image of the fox is unrealistic, we recognize it as an extended metaphor, rather than a symbol. For the full text of this poem see (Arinstein 1984: 550).
Thirdly, in metonymic symbols designata do not usually imply each other directly, i.e. they are not immediate logical predicates of each other. On the other hand, in metonymies as tropes designata are immediate logical predicates of each other.
Before comparing metonymic symbols with metonymies, let me dwell on two general subtypes within metonymy and related tropes.3 The first subtype includes metonymies with the connections ‘part-whole’, ‘whole-part’, ‘characteristic-object characterized’, ‘container-object contained’, ‘instrument-doer’, etc. which have a substance or a concrete notion for their tenor. For example:
Examples from (Hughes 1977: 33; Poetry Review 1969: 256; Arinstein 1984: 426).
The second subtype embraces metonymies with connections ‘object-its characteristic’, ‘cause-effect’, ‘effect-cause’, ‘attendant circumstance-phenomenon’ which have an abstract notion for their tenor. For example:
Examples from (Skelton 1964: 53, Poetry Review 1969: 226, Hughes 1977: 13).
The latter subtype of metonymies, those with a characterizing or abstract tenor, may be mistakenly identified as symbols. But unlike in symbols, the tenor in them is an immediate logical predicate of the vehicle, the source domain and the target domain practically coincide. The contexts actualize the meanings of the same order and do not point to the plane of abstraction or generalization, i. e., to a meaning, which is qualitatively different from the vehicle. Besides, the tenor (for example, ‘recognition and fame’) does not generate still more abstract and generalized symbolic meanings, it does not create new levels of meaning, as it is often the case with metonymic symbols.
For that matter compare the metonymic symbol ‘hand’ in the poem ‘The Hand that Signed the Paper Felled a City...’ by Dylan Thomas. (Arinstein 1984: 422-424) In general terms, the notion ‘hand’, as well as the corresponding etymons in various languages, has stable archetypal associations with God, the demiurge. (Makovsky 1996: 292) The hand is the main image of the poem under consideration, the part of body, representing an anonymous ruler (synecdoche). This image is particularized - ‘five fingers’, ‘a goose's quill’, ‘the mighty hand leads to a sloping shoulder’, ‘the finger joints are cramped with chalk’, ‘a scribbled name’. As the poem progresses, the image of hand becomes more complicated: the hand does not only fell cities, kill, sign treaties, but breeds fever, famine, locusts and even ‘rules pity’. The figurative meaning of the synecdoche ‘the hand — a ruler’ becomes more and more generalized and mythologized. In the context of the last stanza the initial synecdoche may be already treated as a metonymic symbol: the hand - a ruler (synecdoche: ‘part-whole’) – the rulers (synecdoche: ‘one of the group – the group’) - power (metonymy: ‘people – the related abstract notion’) -> supreme (demonic) evil power (metonymy: abstract notion - supernatural concept).
As we may see, the final meaning of ‘hand’ - supreme evil power - is not initially implied by the vehicle, but deduced from a number of its metonymic predicates through a number of contexts. This leads us to the conclusion that the ‘hand’ in the poem is a metonymic symbol, rather than mere synecdoche. Note that the direct meaning of the ‘hand’, though included in the figurative meanings, is not dissolved in them and has an equal status of importance.
Fourthly, the general rule for symbols is that direct meanings in them are concrete (denotative) and indirect symbolic meanings are abstract (significative), while the two main tropes – metaphor and metonymy - are characterized by variability of concepts and diversity of transposition patterns as to the criterion of concreteness / abstractness. In other words, symbols generally have the only conceptual structure ‘concrete -> abstract’, whereas tropes have various structures (с -> a, c -> c, a -> c, a -> a).
Let me dwell on some specifics of transpositions in symbols and tropes.
The general pattern of transposition in symbols, c -> a (from a concrete immediate to an abstract secondary designatum), is quite evident and finds ample proof in any kind of symbolism. However, one should also bear in mind its two modifications, viz.:
a) The transpositions c -> c and a -> c, with a concrete secondary designatum.
The pattern c -> c is typical of archetypal symbols – associative fusions of two concrete, substantial notions. The secondary designatum in such symbols is either fictional (mythological), or real, but connected with the immediate designatum by fictional (mythological) relations or similar to it in fictional (mythological) characteristics.
For example, according to Hans Biedermann (1989: 309), the egg symbolizes: a) the primordial embryo, out of which the world evolved (metonymy: ‘concrete notion -> concrete notion, fictional’); b) risen Christ, i.e. the nestling who breaks through an egg-shell (metaphor: ‘concrete notion – fictional ground - > concrete notion’); c) in alchemy - silver and gold, i.e. the white and the yolk (metaphor: ‘concrete notion – fictional ground - > concrete notion’). It should be noted, that the symbol of the egg developed in the direction of abstractness, too: fertility, spring, life energy (the yolk), purity and piety (the white, the whiteness of an egg-shell).
Other archetypal symbols with substance designata are ‘gold – the sun’, ‘well – the entrance to the other world’, ‘shadow – a person’s double, a materialized soul’, etc.
Symbolic representation of concrete individuals and geographical places also conforms to the patterns c -> c and a -> c, because the secondary designata in such symbols can be regarded as concrete notions. Such symbols often occur in poetry, for instance, in the poem ‘Spain’ by W. H. Auden (Skelton 1964: 133) we encounter the symbolic representation of Spain. Here individual images (e.g. the fortress like a motionless eagle eyeing the valley; the chapel built in the forest) symbolize, first, generalized notions, viz. vigilance and deep religiousness, and through these notions the ultimate concrete designatum – Spain.
b) The transposition a -> a (abstract vehicle -> abstract tenor) — the transfer of a name of an abstract designatum to an abstract secondary designatum.
Symbols of this kind are abstract and belong to metaphysical poetry. Their immediate designata tend to have no image, but may potentially relate to a variety of images, being generalized notions common for all of them. The secondary designata of such symbols are always abstract.
Symbols a -> a are characteristic of poetry, for instance, by E. E. Cummings and Wallace Stevens. Cummings’ symbolism is peculiar, in that he discovered the symbolic potential of adverbial, pronominal and modal words. For example, the word ‘now’ is so often reiterated in Cummings’ poetry as a central unit of sense, that it becomes an abstract symbol in its own right. It means the transcendental, the timeless, the eternal in contrast to destructive time and paltry human fuss. This symbol occurs, for example, in Cummings’ ‘the busy the people…’ ‘SONG’, ‘what time is it?’. (Cummings 1963)
We can also identify a lot of abstract symbols in W. Stevens’ poetry. It is acknowledged by critics, for example, (Shaviro 1988), that the notions ‘cry’, ‘nothingness’, ‘desire’, ‘adventure’, ‘invention’, ‘discovery’ are Stevens’ abstract symbols and simultaneously the terms of his philosophic discourse.
Despite the existing deviations from the rule, I emphatically assert that the basic transposition pattern in symbols is c -> a, i.e. ‘concrete designatum -> abstract designatum’, rather than c -> с and a -> a. It is so because: 1) the patterns a -> a and c -> с are comparatively rare; 2) the concrete secondary designatum in symbols with the pattern c -> c tends to be perceived as more abstract than its immediate designatum; 3) the abstract immediate designatum in symbols with the pattern a -> a tends to be perceived as more concrete than its secondary designatum.
In the main tropes (metaphor and metonymy) and the figures of co-occurrence based on them (simile, quasi-identity (A is B), periphrasis, personification) the patterns of semantic transfer vary.
For metaphors and metaphoric figures the predominant patterns are c -> a (‘we’ve been drinking stagnant water for some twenty years or more’ (Louis MacNeice) -> ‘were passive, sluggish’) and c -> c (‘we are… ribless polyps’ (Edgar Foxall): ribless polyps -> ‘we’). However, the patterns a -> a (‘stupor of life’ (Ted Hughes): stupor -> life) and a -> c (‘the flower is a sigh of color’ (Conrad Aiken): a sigh of color -> flower) are also found in plenty. Examples from (Skelton 1964: 30, 66; Hughes 1977: 43; Matthiessen 1950: 867).
For metonymies and metonymic figures the predominant patterns are also c -> c (the arrogance of blood and bone (Ted Hughes): blood and bone -> living beings) and c -> a (power is built on fear and empty bellies (Michael Roberts): empty bellies -> hunger), a slightly less frequent pattern is a -> c (she is all youth, all beauty, all delight (John Masefield): youth, beauty, delight - > she). Examples from (Hughes 1977: 33; Skelton 1964: 53; Arinstein 1984: 190).
So, in principle, tropes are characterized by variability of concepts as to the criterion of concreteness and abstractness and diversity of transposition patterns (с -> a, c -> c, a -> c, a -> a).
These features of tropes are due to their main function – to describe and characterize one concept by means of another without regard to their concreteness / abstractness. The symbol, which serves to represent a concept, an abstract notion, must invariably have a concrete substance for its immediate designatum (c -> a).
The typology presented here is based on the microsemantic structure of symbols and the types of logical connections between their meanings.
I have begun to compile a table of symbols of the XX. century Anglo-American poetry, based on associations between their direct and transferred meanings. To check the data for validity I made use of a variety of dictionaries of symbols (see in References). So far I can only present the preliminary results of my research, which I am planning to complete in the future.
The main types of symbols are metaphoric and metonymic. Many symbols are complex metaphoro-metonymic or metonymo-metaphoric. Complex symbols will not be regarded here as a whole, but analyzed into semantic chains to illustrate the subtypes of metaphoric and metonymic connections.
The main subtypes of metaphoric symbols are as follows.
1. Stereotype metaphoric symbols with the transposition of the name of an object (action, process, property) onto a concept on the basis of similarity of their essential characteristics. Among stereotype symbols I specify the following.
a) Functional transfers. For example, in W. B. Yeats’ ‘Sailing to Byzantium’ we come across the stereotype symbol of a bird as a singer, poet, orator; and bird’s singing as the art of singing, poetry, or oratory. The poet is beseeching the sages on the icons of St. Sofia’s Cathedral to take him to the paradisiac ‘holy city of Byzantium’, where he would never more take his bodily form from nature, ‘but such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make of hammered gold and gold enameling’. As a gold bird he would sing to the drowsy Emperor, lords and ladies of Byzantium ‘of what is past, or passing, or to come’. (Ellmann 1973: 134)
The transposition in this case is based on the analogy of a bird’s action to human activity and may be defined as a functional transfer, where the immediate designatum is the bird’s singing, the ground is emitting harmonious sounds (of birds) = emitting harmonious sounds (of humans) and the secondary designatum is song, poetry, oratory.
Another example of a functional transfer in a stereotype symbol is found in Robert Frost’s ‘Mending Wall’ (Jimbinov 1983: 216-218), where the wall symbolizes prejudice and hostility caused by the primitive instinct of self-preservation. The scheme of transposition in it may be presented as follows: ‘wall - dividing (physically) = estranging (morally) – prejudice, hostility’.
Also note the stereotype symbol of sunlight as spiritual revelation from T. S. Eliot’s ‘Burnt Norton’ (Arinstein 1984: 256-258) with the transposition ‘sunlight – God illuminating the earth, letting one see = letting one realize, understand – spiritual revelation’.
b) Chronotopic (space-time) transfers. A stereotype symbol with such a type of transfer is found in Louis MacNeice’s ‘Train to Dublin’ and ‘Trains in the Distance’ (Prikhodko 1973: 171), where the train symbolizes time. The transposition in this case is based on the analogy of the onward movement in space with the forward course of time: train - progresses in space = goes forward - time.
Other stereotype chronotopic symbols identified by me are ‘road – course of life’ in Robert Frost’s ‘The Road Not Taken’, ‘faring (journey) – course of life’ in E. A. Robinson’s ‘The Wilderness’, valleys – steadiness, immutability, immobility, stagnation in W. H. Auden’s ‘Paysage Moralise’.
c) Synaesthesic transfers, based on associating perceptions of a particular modality (hearing, vision, etc.) with abstract notions, in some way connected with these sensations. In linguistic terms, synaesthesic metaphor is based on similarity of connotations (emotion, evaluation and intensity) in the two meanings within a symbol. Note should be taken of the fact, that synaesthesia is seldom the only link between meanings in symbols, more often it co-occurs with other connections.
Metaphoric synaesthesia is the basis for such stereotype symbols as, for example, ‘the rose-garden – love, paradise’ from T. S. Eliot’s ‘Burnt Norton’ (similarity of evaluation) and ‘night – death’ from Allen Tate’s ‘Ode to the Confederate Dead’ and Dylan Thomas’s ‘Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night’ (similarity of emotion). The grounds for transposition in these symbols are ‘beauty and fragrance, bliss = good’; ‘fear of darkness = fear of the unknown’. It should be noted, that in the symbol ‘night – death’ synaesthesia is subordinate to metaphoric symbolism based on similarity of properties: ‘darkness, inability to see = darkness, the unknown’.
2. Archetypal metaphoric symbols, based on syncretism of primary ideas, i.e. on identification of widely different notions with each other by similarity of some of their characteristics. These symbols may be based on similarity of assumed (fictional) characteristics of notions, or on similarity of notions, one of which pertains to ancient myths, i.e. is fictional itself. Therefore archetypal metaphoric symbols may also be termed mytho-metaphoric symbols. To treat archetypal symbols I have largely drawn upon the data from the dictionaries of symbols (Bauer 1987; Biedermann 1996; Cirlot 1971; Cooper 1978; Garai 1973; Lurker 1983; Vries 1976).
It should be stressed that in literature archetypal symbols often serve to convey abstract ideas, so that the primary content of an archetypal symbol, passing through certain stages of abstraction – intermediate designata - is correlated with an abstract notion. A necessary context is provided by the author in such cases to help the reader bring out the abstract sense of an archetypal symbol.
a) Functional transfers. For example, in Howard Nemerov’s ‘Brainstorm’ we come across an archetypal symbol of crows as mediators between heaven and earth or between this world and the other world.4 The text of the poem may be found in (Roberts 1970: 347).
The transposition in this symbol is based the analogy of the crows’ actual actions and their assumed function as rational beings: croaking = talking; flying in heaven, landing on earth = communicating with the other world and man. Note should be taken of other symbolic meanings of the multivalent symbol of crows in the poem - storm, death, destruction, ruin.
b) Transfers by similarity of form and appearance. For example gold (golden bough, gold bird) as the archetypal symbol of the sun, God, the beautiful and the immortal is one of the symbols of the above-mentioned ‘Sailing to Byzantium’ by W. B. Yeats. The transposition here is twofold, but in both cases it is based on the analogy of properties of a substance and phenomena: 1) bright, luminous = bright as the sun, pertaining to God; 2) hard, durable = ageless, immortal.
To this group I also refer the archetypal symbols of a sunflower in T. S. Eliot’s ‘Burnt Norton’ and marigolds in W. C. Williams’ ‘A Negro Woman’ meaning the sun, and further - life and joy. The texts of these poems may be found, for instance, in (Arinstein 1984: 262) and (Roberts 1970: 287). Apart from being alike in appearance, sunflowers and marigolds are related to the sun as capable of turning their faces with the course of the sun. These symbols are associated with the myths of ancient Greece in which the corresponding flowers fall in love with the sun-god Apollo (see archetypal metonymic symbols).
c) Transfers by similarity of properties. For example the archetypal symbol of the woods as death is found in Robert Frost’s ‘Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening’ and ‘Come In’.5 The texts of the poems can be found in (Jimbinov 1983: 236, 238). The transposition in this symbol is based on the analogy of the properties of woods and death: the woods are a strange world, inhabited by dangerous creatures; the dark abode of nature, of spirits; the path to the realm of the dead; thus, they are mysterious, dangerous, connected with the other world and death.
d) Chronotopic (space-time) transfers. The archetypal symbols ‘river – linear time, a course of human life’, ‘the sea – cyclic time, recurrence of birth and death, infinity’ are found in ‘The Dry Salvages’ by T. S. Eliot; the sea with the same meaning is also found in Michael Hamburger’s ‘Tides’. The texts of these poems may be found in (Arinstein 1984: 270, 516).
The transposition here is based on the analogy of the forward flow of the river with linear time and the rhythmic repetition of the motion of sea waves, tides and ebbs, with cyclic time. By extension, we can deduce two related meanings of these symbols: the river means a course of an individual life 6 and the sea is an eternal cycle of life, production and destruction of living creatures. As we reflect on the poems further, we may also divine the symbolic meaning of the river as the world path, the cosmic order, the rational law, and the sea as primordial chaos, the mysterious abode of deity, the irrational and subconscious.
e) Transfers of spatial characteristics up/down to abstract concepts. The symbol ‘lotos – spiritual growth’ from T. S. Eliot’s ‘Burnt Norton’ (Arinstein 1984: 258) serves as a good example of this type (‘And the pool was filled with water out of sunlight, and the lotos rose, quietly, quietly…’). The transposition here is based on the comparison of a rising lotos to man’s rising spirit: the lotos is growing, raising its flower = man is holding his head up towards heaven – his spirit grows.
f) Transfers of colors and numbers to abstract concepts. For example, in T. S. Eliot’s ‘Journey of the Magi’ we come across ‘an old white horse’ as a symbol of chastity, the Holy Spirit; and three trees as a multivalent symbol with Christian semantics. The text of the poem can be found in (Jimbinov 1983: 298).
Transpositions: a) white horse – brightness and purity of color = clarity of mind, imperturbability, purity of deed - chastity, the Holy Spirit; b) three trees - threefold sacrifice practiced in the ancient times; a portent of the three crosses on the Golgotha -> Holy Father, Holy Spirit, Christ.
Here we also observe the phenomenon of ancient symbolism of animals as chthonic or heavenly creatures. The horse is an ancient chthonic symbol, primarily associated with evil powers because of its strength and violence (‘wild army’ (Biedermann 1996: 153)); after domestication it becomes associated with powers of good.
3. Individual metaphoric symbols, based on similarity of characteristics which are not essential either for the immediate designatum, or for the secondary designatum, or for both of them. Transposition in such symbols often goes through a series of intermediate links, or intermediate designata, which provide a gradual passage from the direct to the transferred meaning.
a) Functional transfers. For example, in the ‘The Course of a Particular’ and ‘Not Ideas About the Thing but the Thing Itself’ by Wallace Stevens we encounter his individual symbol of cry as the sign of a driving force present in the outer world and in the mind. The poems concerned may be found in (Roberts 1970: 139, 137).
‘Cry’ is but one of many conceptual symbols of Stevens’ philosophical poetry, reflecting his individual outlook. The transposition in this symbol is based on the analogy of a cry of a strange creature with some ideal driving force revealing itself in the outer world and in the mind. The symbol has a more complex structure, possessing more intermediate designata than hitherto was the case: cry – a call of some strange creature – arouses, perturbs the mind = makes the mind respond, give an inside ‘cry’ - a force revealing itself in the outer world and in the mind.