Here's a link to the article we talked about in class today.
The article claims that the structure of our brains causes physical sensations and abstract concepts to overlap (or, pejoratively, "to be confused"; or, positively, "to be synthesized"; or, poetically, "to correspond"). If this is true then metaphorical thinking is not something you learn in English class but something that's already part of your brain.
And not only is it part of the brain but it's built into language: "the kid is spoiled rotten" "dirty rotten scoundrel" "lousy book". These words refer both to abstract concepts -- the child whose morals are ruined by indulgent parents, the immoral jerk, the book of poor quality -- and to physical phenomenon that correspond with the concepts -- the spoiling of food and rotting of flesh, physical dirtiness and rotting flesh (again), something covered with lice. The concepts are entwined with (and colored by) physical manifestations and our physical senses. If the physical associations in the metaphor are alive (present in the mind) they intensify the feeling associated with the concept. Our thinking and feeling are entwined.
When discussing immorality, the article observes, people tend to feel physically dirty so much so that they will often literally wash their hands (Lady Macbeth? Pontius Pilate?). If the language emphasizes the dirtiness and rottenness of the amorality then we'll feel the immorality that much more acutely.
& that's one of the things that literature does: induces us to feel ideas instead of just thinking them.
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