A Quote by W. H. Auden
Human language is mythological and metaphorical by nature.
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If language is intimately related to being human, then when we study language we are, to a remarkable degree, studying human nature.
Metaphor is pervasive in everyday life, not just in language but in thought and action. Our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature.
I've always been interested in oral traditions and mythological stories and legends from antiquity that have to do with nature, attempts to explain mysterious or puzzling, or very striking phenomena from nature. Things that people observed or heard about in nature.
Moreover, metaphor is typically viewed as characteristic of language alone, a matter of words rather than thought or action. For this reason, most people think they can get along perfectly well without metaphor. We have found, on the contrary, that metaphor is pervasive in everyday life, not just in language but in thought and action. Our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature.
Language,-human language,-after all is but little better than the croak and cackle of fowls, and other utterances of brute nature,-sometimes not so adequate.
The old view was that delicacy of language was part of the nature, the sacred nature, of eros and that to speak about it in any other way would be to misunderstand it. What has disappeared is the risk and the hope of human connectedness embedded in eros. Ours is a language that reduces the longing for an other to the need for individual, private satisfaction and safety.
Language operates between literal and metaphorical signification.
Language operates between literal and metaphorical signification
This can’t be happening. It’s just not possible. (Cassandra) Oh, well, let’s not have reality intrude now, shall we? I mean, hey, you’re a mythological being descended from mythological beings and you’re in the house of an immortal guardian no human can remember five minutes after they leave his presence. Who’s to say that you can’t get pregnant in a dream by him? What? We’re jumping into the realm of reality now? (Katra)
There are very deep and restrictive principles that determine the nature of human language and are rooted in the specific character of the human mind
The earliest language was body language and, since this language is the language of questions, if we limit the questions, and if we only pay attention to or place values on spoken or written language, then we are ruling out a large area of human language.
And what is the very essence of poetry if it is not this 'metaphorical language'-this marking of the before unapprehended relations of things?
For one thing, studying language is by itself a part of a study of human intelligence that is, perhaps, the central aspect of human nature. And second, I think, it is a good model for studying other human properties, which ought to be studied by psychologists in the same way.
I can't imagine a mental life, a spiritual existence, not inextricably bound up with language of a formal, mediated nature. Telling stories, choosing an appropriate language with which to tell the story: This seems to me quintessentially human, one of the great adventures of our species.
The power of nature exists in its silence. Human words cannot encode the meaning because human language has access only to the shadow of meaning.
I don't speak anything very well. The longer that you travel, you find out that you really don't even need to speak the language to get around and get things done, to live in those places. If you're somewhat resourceful and perceptive, you're pretty much going to know what's going on because human nature is human nature: they understand it, you understand it, and it works.
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