A Sample: the trope called "simile"
“Like a piece of ice on a hot stove the poem must ride on its own melting.” Robert Frost, The Figure a Poem Makes
It might take a couple of tries to get this simile adequately unwritten:
On the top of the network of controlling values, place the figural example.
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Tropes, with metaphor as the epitome of tropes, have a two part structure: the tenor, the thing or concept to which the trope cross-appropriates another thing or concept (and its qualities): the vehicle. In this case, the vehicle is the "piece of ice," and the tenor is the "poem." If we think of the poem as a piece of ice, the properties of that piece of ice (vehicle) are "carried over" (cross-appropriated) to the poem (tenor). |
The next step is to place an "un-written" version in its appropriate place in the network. In this instance, I am going to guess that this is a positively charged sentence--where the sentence values this living quality of a poem--which would make the sentence the "purpose" of one controlling value. I will then place it accordingly (see diagram to the right).
The most accessible way to proceed is to revise the un-written sentence, thinking backward from the purpose to the context of the controlling value. We want the contrary, negatively charged counter statement to this unwritten version, which would serve as the answer to the question: What could be the problem/context that the purpose resolves?
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Okay, but now how do I move to frame this sentence as a simile, to move the unwritten form toward the figural model?
And then, a step closer to the original form of the sentence (Like _____ the_____verbs_____):
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There are several options to explore here, all of which are good for our purposes:
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NOTE: some sentences will be easier to place into a network of controlling values than others. Use the network of controlling values as a heuristic--a method to come up with new things to say--and as soon as you experience entering the figure, and writing from it, you may feel free to abandon it. Like a raft that has brought you across the river any tool should be abandoned as soon as you've created what it was designed to let you craft.
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Simile with antithesis
“Ah, what a mistress, this Etna! with her strange winds prowling round her like Circe’s panthers, some black, some white.” D. H. Lawrence, Sea and Sardinia
Metaphor
“Nay, to conclude upon a note of grandeur, it is by ignorance alone that we advance through the rough seas of this our mortal life.” Hilaire Belloc, In Praise of Ignorance
Reification
“The winds that scattered the Spanish Armada blew English literature, which had been merely smoldering for generations, into a blaze of genius.” J. B. Priestley, Literature and Western Man
Personification
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“Death stands at attention; obedient, expectant, ready to serve, ready to shear away the peoples en masse; ready, if called on, to pulverize, without hope of repair, what is left of civilisation.” Winston Churchill, World Crisis
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