metaphor

Jim Finnegan, proprietor of the always enlightening ursprache blog as well as the aphoristically amazing Tramp Freighter, sends news of a new book on philosopher-aphorist George Santayana: The Genteel Tradition in American Philosophy and Character and Opinion in the United States. This article from City Pulse describes the book, a collection of scholarly essays, and includes the Santayana sayings listed below. Santayana (pp. 346–347 in Geary’s Guide) led a life completely dedicated to literature, thanks in part to a hefty inheritance from his mother. He studied and taught at Harvard, where William James was a fellow student and T.S. Eliot and Wallace Stevens were his pupils. An atheist, he spent the last decade of his life in a convent in Rome, cared for by the nuns. I recently came across Atoms of Thought, an aphoristic compilation of excerpts from Santayana’s books, published in 1950. It’s a kind of anthology, with the excerpts arranged under key categories and themes. Santayana is distinctive for having coined several phrases that have become proverbial, like

Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

But my favorite Santayana-ism is:

The God to whom depth in philosophy brings back men’s minds is far from being the same from whom a little philosophy estranges them.

Here are the aphorisms quoted in the City Pulse piece:

A child educated only at school is an uneducated child.

America is a young country with an old mentality.

Fun is a good thing but only when it spoils nothing better.

History is a pack of lies about events that never happened told by people who weren’t there.

The Bible is a wonderful source of wisdom for those who don’t understand it.

There is a metaphor and an aphorism for everything, including volcanic eruptions.

In thinking about the eruption of Iceland’s volcano, I was reminded of The Prose Edda, the 13th century Icelandic epic by Snorri Sturluson. The Prose Edda is a handbook for aspiring poets and, according to Snorri, by far the most important thing for poets to know is how to make a proper kenning.

A kenning is a metaphor that replaces a proper name with a poetic description of what that person, place or thing is or does. For example, in ancient Icelandic verse, a sword is not a sword but an “icicle of blood”; a ship is not a ship but the “horse of the sea”; eyes are not eyes but the “moons of the forehead”.

Though invented by ancient Icelandic bards, kennings are still quite common. We use them every day. Simple phrases such as ‘brain storm’ and ‘pay wall’ are basic kennings, as is ‘pain in the ass’ as in you are not you but ‘a pain in the ass’.

Kennings are often among the first metaphors children produce. I remember standing at a window with my eldest son, Gilles, when he was about two. We were looking at a rainbow. He pointed to the sun streaming from behind some dark clouds and blurted out “big sky lamp”, a classic kenning if there ever was one.

So in honor of the Icelandic volcano, it seemed only natural to come up with some appropriate kennings.

Pliny the Younger, writing about the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD, described the volcano’s plume as “a pine tree. It rose into the sky on a very long ‘trunk’ from which spread some ‘branches’.” So in kenning form, this eruption could be described as ‘a giant tree of smoke and ash’.

The thing about kennings, though, is that they inevitably reveal our true feelings. If you want to know what you really think of someone or something—your significant other, maybe, or your job—try coming up with some relevant kennings. You might be surprised.

The most appropriate kennings for this eruption, which is overwhelmingly seen in the context of personal inconvenience and financial damage, are good examples of this. So better perhaps than ‘giant tree of smoke and ash’ are kennings like ‘nightmare of air travelers’, ‘disrupter of business meetings and state funerals’, ‘bankrupter of airlines’ maybe, and ‘windfall for train, bus and ferry operators’ certainly.

For me personally, living as I do under one of the flight paths for Heathrow, the best kenning is: ‘silencer of the skies’.

Which is another interesting thing about kennings: They often highlight some seemingly insignificant aspect of an event that later turns out to be decisive. Who could have predicted that, for me at least, the biggest impact of the eruption of an Icelandic volcano would be a few days of peace and quiet?

The eruption of another Icelandic volcano in 1783 is believed to have been one of the causes of the French Revolution, because the ash cloud led to a poor harvest in France and that, in turn, led to even more public unrest. Who can say what the ultimate consequences of this eruption will be?

In all the commentary around the eruption, the most insightful comment I’ve heard came from an Icelandic meteorologist. I doubt he intended this statement as an aphorism, but it certainly is. “Something is happening,” he said, “but we don’t know what it is.”

(Presented at the TED Salon, London, 21 April, 2010)

Rabbi Rami describes himself on his website as a “holy rascal”, and that seems to me a wholly accurate description. This rabbi’s aphorisms have something of Rumi and Khayyam in them, the whiff of incense mixed with the laughter of the spiritual trickster. Rami, an adjunct professor of religion at Middle Tennessee State University, teaches writing—specifically, aphorism writing—as spiritual practice in the university’s certificate program in writing and at Path & Pen, an annual writers’ conference held at the Scarritt Bennett Center in Nashville. Rami is one of only two other people I know of who teach aphorisms: One is a high school teacher who uses aphorism writing in one of her classes and the other is Sara Levine; you can find out how she uses aphorisms in teaching by watching her presentation at the 2008 aphorism symposium in London. Rami says the goal of his course is “to get people to notice and think about the power of brief writing in their daily lives; to understand how this writing is constructed and how/why it works; and to encourage students to create aphorisms of their own.” To see how Rami achieves all three of these goals in his own writing, read the selection of his aphorisms below. If you want more, as you surely will, follow Rabbi Rami on Twitter.

“Emotions are choices.” Just not ones you get to make.

“In reality nothing is born and nothing dies.” Stop wasting money on birthdays and funerals.

“The only way to see the whole is to step outside of it;” at which point, of course, it is no longer the whole.

Be willing to let anything happen, even if what is happening is that you aren’t willing.

If you think that it’s the thought that counts, try remembering your anniversary and then doing nothing about it.

Detachment is the key to enlightenment, but who cares?

“Don’t allow people to push your buttons.” Wear your clothes inside out.

The difference between being alive and being dead is being able to tell the difference between being alive and being dead.