Samuel Taylor Coleridge called metaphor “an act of the imagination,” whereas he relegated simile to “an act of fancy.” Photo from National Portrait Gallery, 1795. Public Domain Samuel Taylor Coleridge ...

Historically, metaphors and figurative language have been ignored as a serious topic of study in psychology and philosophy, exiled to the land of rhetoricians or literary analysts. In fact, even in ...

Jan. 14-20 is Idiom Week, and today we thought we’d have a heart-to-heart about some strange phrases we use. Idioms, metaphors and similes are all types of figurative language. According to ...

Some people find it difficult to say that someone has died, so they may turn to metaphors for death instead. These metaphors for dying can help you share that someone has died with softer and gentler ...

Poetry and social media join forces in April, as Tell Me More celebrates National Poetry Month with the Muses and Metaphor series. We'll feature poems exchanged via Twitter by NPR fans — always in 140 ...

Aristotle concluded in the 4th century BC that “the difference is but slight” between similes and metaphors. After all, the metaphor “he’s a bear in the morning,” means the same as the simile “he’s ...

St. Joseph High School juniors in English teacher Alicia Yrle’s class recently wrote extended metaphor poems as part of an assignment related to the poem “Huswifery “ by Edward Taylor. It compares the ...

An official journal of the College English Association, The CEA Critic publishes scholarly works that, through "close reading" methodology, examine the texts of fiction, poetry, drama, nonfiction, and ...

"Narcissus" by Caravaggio (c. 1598). Source: Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain What is an allegory? An allegory (Greek, "a speaking about something else") is a complete and cohesive narrative, for ...