A Footnote to Aristotle’s Definition of Metaphor

Abstract

This article deals with Aristotle’s definition of metaphor as seen in the translations of his Poetics into various European languages. It begins with the finding that the Slovene edition of this treatise does not preserve the original Greek term “metaphor”, but replaces it with “simile”. However, this solution is incorrect because in his Rhetoric Aristotle himself uses “simile”, which is the usual translation of his εἰκών/eikôn. This means that two separate terms have been combined into one translated term; “simile” thus no longer exists alongside “metaphor”, because “simile” is “metaphor”, which consequently impoverishes the functionality of the original terminology. – This error in naming metaphor only occurs to the Slovene edition of the Poetics, whereas the deficiency in the traditional translation of the definition of metaphor (i.e. “Metaphor is the transference of a strange word either from genus to species, species to genus, species to species, or by analogy.”) is typical of the majority of foreign editions of the Poetics. However, a detailed reading of the introductory part of this definition and of the explanation of the first two types of Aristotle’s metaphor in this wording shows that in fact it does not involve a transfer of a term from a genus to a species and from a species to a genus, but precisely the contrary: a transfer from species to genus and from genus to species. This is by no means the result of incorrect induction on the part of the philosopher, but of an incorrect interpretation of the essential features of his understanding of metaphor. The main role in this procedure is played by “epiphora”, which is not a synonym for metaphor (i.e. transfer), but denotes assignment or allocation. Accordingly, metaphor is not created by transferring words, but by assigning another/foreign name to a thing. In the first type of metaphor, the genus name is thus assigned to a specific phenomenon, and in the second case the species name is assigned to the genus phenomenon. This means that, with the first type, there truly is a transfer from the (lexical) genus to the species (of an object or phenomenon), and with the second type a transfer from (lexical) species to the genus (of an object or phenomenon). This procedure is suitably reflected in the 1909 translation by Ingram Bywater: “Metaphor consists in giving the things a name that belongs to something else; the transference being either from genus to species, or from species to genus, or from species to species, or on grounds of analogy.”