ENGLISH 737 / Speaking Pictures: Emblems, Metaphor and Language in Early Modern Writing

3 unit(s)

M. Silcox

Metaphor, crucial to what language is and how it operates, is the basis for an interpretive understanding of the world. Early modern emblems embody a metaphoric process that permeated the writing of the time and exemplify the culture’s relation to the symbolic. Exploring metaphor in the works of paired emblematists and poets, we will consider topics such as early modern concepts of language, knowledge, mimesis, the relationship between the concrete and the abstract, and the relationship between the individual mind and the world.