Review by Choice Review
Anthropologists have long been concerned not only with what people say but how and why they say it in certain ways. Fernandez sets forth something of the intellectual background to the study of tropes. Part 1, ^D["Trope as Cognition and Poetic Discovery,^D]" consists of essays by P. Friederich on polytropy, N. Quinn on the cultural basis of metaphor, and H. Alverson on metaphor and experience. Part 2, ^D["The Play of Tropes,^D]" contains three examples of metaphorical usage in different cultural settings (T. Turner on parrot metaphors in New Guinea, East Africa, and Amazonia; E. Ohnuki-Tierney on the monkey in Japanese metaphor; and D. Durham and J. Fernandez on the use of metaphor by recent black South African authors). In Part 3, ^D["Metaphor and the Coherence of Culture,^D]" the authors examine the rules underlying the etiquette of metaphor (D. Pesmen), and the Japanese tea ceremony as it enhances cultural coherence (B. Colby). Not a volume for newcomers to the subject; some prior sensitization to philosophy, linguistic anthropology, and ethnology--not to mention literary criticism and poetics--is surely a precondition for understanding and appreciating the contents of the nine essays presented here.
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
