Metaphor and Metonymy in the Middle Ages
Metaphor and Metonymy in the Middle Ages
Aquinas and Dante
This chapter cites a few of Dante Alighieri's literary passages in which his terms hold an edge of metaphoric enhancement but are primarily metonymic; the naturalizing effect of transmission mechanisms being one of the factors that contribute to the referential and metonymic force of his terms. In addition, St. Thomas Aquinas supports the theory that reality transcends language. The literal level of language refers to the four preexisting and preverbal levels of reality: historical, figural, moral, and mystical. These levels are arranged to allow language to move metonymically between them. Dante and Aquinas appealed to three principles in addressing the literary passages—containment, attraction, and manifestation—all of which interrelate different parts of the universe in terms of parallelism, hierarchy, and causality.
Keywords: Dante Alighieri, St. Thomas Aquinas, historical reality, figural reality, moral reality, mystical reality, containment, attraction, manifestation
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