Muhammad Hassan Shaikh
Shah Abdul Latif University, Pakistan
This study presents A Semantic Analysis of Metaphors in William Blake’s Songs of Experience in the perspective of Leech’s theory of metaphor. Leech, in his globally recognized book, A Linguistic Guide to English Poetry (1969) has introduced four kinds of metaphor namely, the Concretive Metaphor, the Animistic Metaphor, the Humanizing (Anthropomorphic) Metaphor and the Synaesthetic Metaphor. The kinds of metaphors introduced by Leech have been objectively traced from last ten poems of William Blake’s Songs of Experience (1794). Interpretive method of Qualitative research has been employed to carry out this study. After categorizing metaphors systematically, the study describes their literal meanings. Afterwards, these metaphors have been analyzed on purely semantic grounds. The findings exhibit that William Blake’s way of perceiving things is different from the general norms of the society in which he composed poems. This helps us realize the improvements that are needed to make society a better place to live. Most importantly, Freedom, Love and Justice are the three core values that he believes to be the essential needs of every society for human prosperity. The current study may also help to increase existing body of knowledge in the field of literary criticism.
The above abstract is a part of the article which was accepted at The Second International Conference on Current Issues of Languages, Dialects and Linguistics (WWW.TLLL.IR), 1-2 February 2018, Ahwaz.
