Contemporary Metaphor Studies and Classical Texts

Abstract

This article reviews recent studies on metaphor theories applied to the classical corpus and argues that approaches from cognitive linguistics are essential for the re-interpretation of Greek and Latin texts. Its main focus are two monographs, Andreas T. Zanker’s Metaphor in Homer and Tommaso Gazzarri’s Theory and Practice of Metaphors in Seneca’s Prose. The volume of collected papers on spatial metaphors in ancient texts edited by Fabian Horn and Ciliers Breytenbach proposes that the Lakoff-Johnson approach to cognitive metaphor is productive and that mappings from empirically accessible domains construct abstract concepts in spatial models of mental activity.