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Metaphoric Resonance in Shakespearean Tragedy
Metaphoric Resonance in Shakespearean Tragedy Author:Myron Stagman Shakespearean symbolism. An occasional prefigurement and echo was hardly unknown before Shakespeare. But the vast echoism and metaphoric trails - continuing forward and backward references - employed in some of Shakespeare's tragedies, was rare if not unknown before him. Who, even now, sets up networks of metaphoric, symbolic vibrations undernea... more »th the surface story? Thereby stressing themes and characterizations poetically, economically, subliminally. The phenomenon of Metaphoric Resonance is described with a variety of examples from different Shakespearean plays. The tragedy 'Coriolanus' provides a veritable nether world of metaphoric resonance, the book being largely devoted to presenting that nether world. Two examples of messages conveyed via metaphoric resonance are: an element of the Weight metaphoric trail in 'Coriolanus': The protagonist says scornfully to the Citizens in the first Act: He that depends upon your favours swims with fins of lead. In the second Act, Coriolanus more cautiously, deceptively, remarks to the plebeians' tribune Brutus: Your people, I love them as they weigh. The full import of this statement would be lost without knowledge of the metaphoric resonance. Richard II, Act II, scene 1: John of Gaunt prophesies and puns to King Richard: 'O, how [my] name fits my composition!...gaunt in being old...and therein fasting, hast thou made me gaunt. Gaunt am I for the grave, gaunt as a grave.' Shakespeare set up other prophesies in the play with this one by John of Gaunt. Thus, in the fourth scene of Act II, a Captain declares, 'And lean-look'd prophets whisper fearful change'. The playwright has been criticized for having Gaunt pun at such a time, but name a better way for the playful Shakespeare to tip off the audience to a shrewdly resonant 'lean-look'd prophets' two scenes away.« less