Identifying with Metaphor: Metaphors of Personal Identification

Cohen, Ted

doi:10.2307/432147

Cited by 34 publications

(12 citation statements)

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“…Bean is me.'' Such asymmetry affirms that, rather than comparison through simile, this reader is engaged in a metaphor of personal identification (Cohen 1999).…”

Section: The Figurative Form Of Self-implication: Readers' Metaphorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Ted Cohen (1999) has argued that the momentary state of a reader's absorption within an author's, narrator's, or character's perspective can become self-modifying when the reader metaphorically identifies with that figure. Cohen has in mind a mode of identification resembling dramatic enactment: a figure in litera-9.…”

Section: The Aesthetic Relevance Of Self-modifying Feelingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Forms of Self-Implication in Literary Reading

Kuiken¹,

Miall²,

Sikora³

2004

Poetics Today

181

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Literary reading has the capacity to implicate the self and deepen selfunderstanding, but little is known about how and when these effects occur. The present article examines two forms of self-implication in literary reading. In one form, which functions like simile, there is explicitly recognized similarity between personal memories and some aspect of the world of the text (A is like B). In another form, which functions like metaphor, the reader becomes identified with some aspect of the world of the text, usually the narrator or a character (A is B). These forms of self-implication can be differentiated within readers' open-ended comments about their reading experiences.The results of a phenomenological study indicate that such metaphors of personal identification are a pivotal feature of expressive enactment, a type of reading experience marked by (1) explicit descriptions of feelings in response to situations and events in the text, (2) blurred boundaries between oneself and the narrator of the text, and (3) active and iterative modification of an emergent affective theme. The self-modifying feelings characteristic of expressive enactment give it a fugal form, manifest as thematic developments that move toward saturation, richness, and depth. The results of an experimental study suggest that expressive enactment occurs frequently among individuals who remain depressed about a significant loss that occurred some time ago. Together with the phenomenological study,

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“…Bean is me.'' Such asymmetry affirms that, rather than comparison through simile, this reader is engaged in a metaphor of personal identification (Cohen 1999).…”

Section: The Figurative Form Of Self-implication: Readers' Metaphorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Aesthetic Relevance Of Self-modifying Feelingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Forms of Self-Implication in Literary Reading

Kuiken¹,

Miall²,

Sikora³

2004

Poetics Today

181

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The functions of the latter, what we have called modifying feelings, can be usefully compared with the processes by which metaphors exert their generative effects. We can conceive of literary reading as a source of feeling-guided metaphors, providing, in particular, metaphors of personal identification (Cohen, 1999). We will now try to clarify that suggestion.…”

Section: Self-modifying Feelings and Metaphor Generationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Metaphors of personal identification (Cohen, 1999) implicitly create an ad hoc class that is exemplified by a figure from the text and also includes the reader, thereby transforming modifying feelings into self-modifying feelings. Self-modifying feelings in this form are enactive (Wilshire, 1982); the reader implicitly is taking on the embodied perspective of a figure in the text (''I am X'').…”

Section: Metaphors Of Personal Identificationmentioning

confidence: 99%

A feeling for fiction: becoming what we behold

Miall

Kuiken

2002

Poetics

198

139

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“…13. The parallel to how metaphors work has been pointed out, see Cohen (1999), Kuiken, Miall & Sikora (2004: 183ff) and Miall & Kuiken (2002: 230ff). The point is how metaphors of personal identification make what is unknown familiar by class inclusion or extension: By making me see the character's experience as relevant to something in my own life, I may come to a new understanding of my own situation as the character's experience works as a metaphor for my situation -revealing some similarities that perhaps challenge my previous understanding.…”

Section: Notesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Self-Reflection

Vaage

2009

Nordicom Review

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Idiosyncratic responses are more strictly personal responses to fiction film that vary across individual spectators. In philosophy of film, idiosyncratic responses are often deemed inappropriate, unwarranted and unintended by the film. One type of idiosyncratic response is when empathy with a character triggers the spectator to reflect on his own real-life issues. Self-reflection can be triggered by egoistic drift, where the spectator starts imagining himself in the character's shoes, by re-experiencing memories, or by unfamiliar experiences that draw the spectator's attention. Film may facilitate self-reflection by slowing down narrative development and making the narrative indeterminate. Such scenes do make idiosyncratic responses, such as self-reflection, appropriate and intended. Fiction film is a safe context for the spectator to reflect on personal issues, as it also affords him with distancing techniques if the reflection becomes too painful or unwanted. The fictional context further encourages self-reflection in response to empathy, as the spectator is relieved from real-life moral obligations to help the other.

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Identifying with Metaphor: Metaphors of Personal Identification

Cited by 34 publications

References 0 publications

Forms of Self-Implication in Literary Reading

Forms of Self-Implication in Literary Reading

A feeling for fiction: becoming what we behold

Self-Reflection

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