S IBYLLE B AUMBACH Travelling the Worlds of Myth and Metaphor: The Metaphorical Dimension of Mythical Figures I The Hermeneutics of Metaphor — the Metaphor of Hermeneutics The understanding of metaphor is a highly interpretative act: Combining two expressions from two different domains and suggesting their sameness, metaphors incite a complex thought process. The hearer has to figure out what the speaker means ― he has to contribute more to the communication than just passive uptake ― and he has to do that by going through another and related semantic content from the one which is communicated. 1 While challenging our imaginative faculties, metaphor supports our understanding of the unknown by linking it to something which is (more) familiar. All we have to do is to ‘connect,’ to engage in the transit from one domain to another. The process of transfer, interchange, and transition is fundamental to the hermeneutics of metaphor and central to the metaphor of hermeneutics. What seems a circular argument in fact leads me straight to the topic of my essay, which is concerned with the connection of myth and metaphor. The link between metaphor and hermeneutics is not a myth and yet both concepts are closely connected to mythical thinking. While the etymology of the term ‘hermeneutics’ is debatable, very often Hermes enters the scene when its origin is explained. And rightly so: There is hardly a more adequate figure for epitomizing the concept of translation, transferral, and interpretation than the wingfooted courier who delivers messages of the gods to the humans, bridging the gap between the unfamiliar and the familiar. Communicating between two different domains, embodying the act of crossing-over and providing insight into something unknown, Hermes cannot only be regarded as the patron of interpretation but also as the patron of translation and thus of metaphor. As it will be argued in this essay, there is an intimate connection between myth and metaphor: not only is metaphor a key component of mythical thinking, but figures that emerge from myth serve as useful metaphors, which continue to 1 John R. Searle, “Metaphor,” Metaphor and Thought, ed. Andrew Ortony, 2 nd ed. (1979; Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1993) 111. S IBYLLE B AUMBACH 112 shape our culture and furthermore reflect the ways in which we think metaphors. Myth, in the way it will be understood in this essay, does not follow the Aristotelian concept of mythos or ‘plot,’ but instead will be used to refer to stories deriving predominantly from Greek mythology. Thereby the focus will be set especially on the metaphorical quality of mythical figures, which allows them to become detached from the myths in which they were originally embedded. At least in Western culture, quite a few mythical figures have been conventionalized and become widely established as metaphors. One might think of Echo and Narcissus, for instance, as well as of expressions involving mythical figures, ancient heroes, or characteristic elements of classical myth such as ‘Janus-faced,’ ‘Argus-eyed,’ ‘Oedipus-complex,’ ‘Herculian task,’ ‘Pandora’s box,’ ‘Sisyphean labour,’ ‘Trojan horse,’ or ‘Orphic language’. These expressions have entered our lexicon as fixed terms and even though they seem to fall into the category of ‘dead metaphors,’ 2 they continue to maintain a strong connection to the original myths, which have to be retrieved in order to understand their full semantic scope. Figures such as Hermes, Pegasus, or Medusa, for instance, have advanced to become popular and very ‘living’ metaphors in Western culture where they appear in quite different contexts: Thus we meet the patron of travellers and traders as an email-server, as a public transportation service (the name of a bus company in the Netherlands), or as a journal of classical philology and of language and communication. All of these examples connect to the function of the mythical figure as bearer of messages, quite literally as transporter and transmitter of knowledge about different, partly lost cultures and languages — even EU-funding lines have tapped the potential of Hermes’ metaphoric quality, alluding to his role as communicator of knowledge, and translator of information across (national) boundaries. 3 Pegasus, the winged steed of the Muses, returns as an airline company, as a digital library catalogue, an agency for authors and playwrights, as constellation and as satellite, 4 suggesting the movement of ideas and creativity of thought; and Medusa, the snaky-heard woman with her petrifying looks (or locks) greets us as a fashion label (Versace), as the name of a German publishing company (Medusa Verlag), and even from bottles of the alcoholic beverage absinthe. 5 It is remarkable that a figure that draws its power from ‘seeing’ nowadays 2 For patterns of ‘metaphor death’ see esp. Richard Trim, Metaphor Networks: The Comparative Evolution of Figurative Language ( Basingstoke/ New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007) 141-51. 3 See e.g. http: / / hermes-email-server.pcfiles.com/ ; http: / / www.hermespaketshop.de; http: / / www.steiner-verlag.de/ Hermes/ ; http: / / hermes2.asb.dk/ (15 March 2009). 4 See e.g. http: / / www.flypgs.com/ en/ , http: / / pegasus.library.ucsb.edu; http: / / www.pegasusagency.de, http: / / www.astronautix.com/ craft/ pegasus.htm (15 March 2009). 5 See http: / / absinthe.cc/ abs_germany.htm (15 March 2009). Travelling the Worlds of Myth and Metaphor 113 appears primarily as visual metaphor, or rather: as metalepsis, as “metaphor for a metaphor” as it alludes to a literary source, “a text which in itself is already figural.” 6 Even though pictures cannot claim that ‘A is B’ and do not operate with words to establish a connection between a source and target domain, they can become successful metaphors insofar as they effectively establish a relation between the represented image and its context, 7 between the head of the Medusa and the inebriant power of ‘the green Muse,’ of absinthe. 8 Wherever it appears, the image of the Medusa suggests attractiveness, fascination, and intoxication. Furthermore, her metamorphic quality (she turns her beholders into stone) as well as her own ‘translation’ from a beautiful woman into a horrible monster, and finally her multimodal reception in text and image point to a rather complex relation to metaphoric thought and theory. The Medusa seems an adequate image for conceptualising metaphor since she embodies Unbegrifflichkeit (Hans Blumenberg) insofar as she cannot be beheld nor, due to her petrifying look and the poisonous snakes attached to her, touched (be-griffen), nor can her horror be encapsulated by words, and yet words turn out to be the most adequate media to narrate her story and circumscribe her appearance. While Medusa points to the need for translation and metamorphosis, in which the object is transformed while its essence remains the same and is elucidated in the act of transferral, Pegasus suggests a creative space, and Hermes epitomises translation, which suggests that mythical figures can serve to provide some insight into the hermeneutics of metaphor. Thereby they not only shed some light on the ways in which metaphors are created but furthermore direct our attention to what can be lost in the course of translation. “Metaphor,” as Jacques Derrida reminds us, “is never innocent” insofar as “[i]t orients research and fixes results.” 9 The hermeneutics of metaphor requires a critical reflection on ways of ‘how to do things with metaphors’ and also with myths in postmodern society. Even though his etymological relevance remains contentious, it is again Hermes who leads the way for he is not only known in classical mythology as messenger and translator but also as trickster, pointing to the doubleness of metaphoric meaning and the ambiguity of language. In comparison to myth, however, metaphor seems less ambiguous and more ‘hermetic’ with regard to the meaning it conveys. 6 Patricia Vicari, “Renaissance Emblematica,” Metaphor and Symbolic Activity 8 (1993): 162. 7 For visual metaphor, see John M. Kennedy, “Metaphor and Art,“ The Cambridge Handbook of Metaphor and Thought, ed. Raymond W. Gibbs (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2008) 47-61. 8 Especially in the 19 th century, absinthe was a popular beverage amongst poets and was referred to as the ‘green Muse’. See Marie-Claude Delahaye, L’Absinthe: Muse de Poètes (Auvers-sur-Loise: Museé de l’Absinthe, 2000) 26-27. 9 Jacques Derrida, Writing and Difference, trans. Alan Bass (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1978) 17. S IBYLLE B AUMBACH 114 As these examples indicate, mythical figures seem to have been dormant rather than dead insofar as nowadays they are constantly revived to shape our perceptions of the world and are used as metaphors, thus remaining a key element of our culture. In the following, the connection between myth and metaphor shall be further investigated, focussing on the ways in which mythical figures develop and sustain their metaphorical qualities. Do some myths or mythical figures prove to be more appropriate than others as far as their metaphorical potential is concerned? And what conclusions can be drawn from the relation between myth and metaphor for current theories of myth and the dialogue between ancient and modern cultures? II The Relation between Myth and Metaphor At a first glance, myth and metaphor do not really seem to connect. As cognitive theorists emphasize, metaphor involves the coactivation of two domains, the target domain and the source domain. Thereby, an abstract, complex, not well-delineated concept is linked to something that is more concrete, physical, and well-delineated in order to make the unfamiliar more familiar. The requirement for the understanding of metaphor involves the immediate understanding of the literal meaning of the expression from the source domain. As Sam Glucksberg observes, “[m]etaphor comprehension like language comprehension in general, is automatic and mandatory. We cannot refuse to understand, and when metaphoric meaning is available, it will be processed.” 10 And there’s the rub: Myth does not seem to provide the source domain required for metaphor since it is not unambiguous. Quite the contrary: Myth, as narrative, can adopt very different forms and reach us in quite a variety of stories, which might focus on diverse aspects of one particular myth and, even though not being contradictory, create variations of the original story. The meaning that is assigned to a specific myth thus ultimately depends on its course of reception, which can stress some elements while neglecting others. In their travels across space and time and their translation into different languages and cultures, myths lose some of their original property while gaining new aspects, which become firmly integrated into their stories. Relying on language, mythical narratives are subject to change not only due to culture-specific modifications but also due to language development. A certain room for variation, however, must also be granted to metaphors. While, as George Lakoff and Mark Johnson argued, 11 metaphors are 10 Sam Glucksberg, “How Metaphors Create Categories - Quickly,“ The Cambridge Handbook of Metaphor and Thought, ed. Raymond W. Gibbs (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2008) 80. 11 George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and its Challenge to Western Thought (New York: Basic Books, 1999). Travelling the Worlds of Myth and Metaphor 115 based on embodied human experience and can thus be claimed to be widespread and (nearly) universal, there are some “cross-cultural” and “withinculture variations,” 12 which have to be taken into consideration. Metaphors do not only shape their physical and cultural contexts but are also shaped by the social, ethnic, and regional influences, by personal interests, and by the communicative situation in which they arise. It seems indisputable that myth exceeds metaphor regarding its wide spectrum of interpretation and its great number of variables. For myth not only connects to a single embodied experience but can comprise several narratives and embraces a broad net of different meanings and experiences. It thus provides a complex semantic space, which can be conceived as accommodating several metaphoric sub-spaces and a broad field of imagery, which might integrate other myths in its narrative web. 13 This is, for instance, illustrated by Ovid’s Metamorphoses, a work that contains a system of myths and transformations, which — as the title suggests — continuously shifts between the literal and the figurative. Ovid’s anthology of mythical narratives provides numerous examples illustrating the connection between myth and metaphor not least because it presents a lexicon of mythical figures, which have inscribed themselves into cultural memory and dominate our conception of classical myth still today. It is especially when we consider mythical figures rather than complex mythical narratives that the connection between the composition of meaning in metaphor and myth becomes most obvious, for mythical figures such as Narcissus embody a sensual experience. However, since the name ‘Narcissus’ means ‘benumbed’ in ancient Greek and is thus a literal translation, it is stricto sensu not a metaphor but rather a personification of the feeling of ‘numbness’. Nonetheless, in the course of reception, it has developed a metaphorical quality since ‘Narcissus’ is no longer recognised as literal translation of ‘benumbed’ but has become a meaningful expression in its own right. And yet, even though referring to someone as a narcissist, or using any other term from the lexical field surrounding ‘Narcissus’ no longer requires any knowledge of the original myth in either the sender or receiver of this information, the connection to the mythical figure is continuously re-evoked and, to a certain degree, sustained in the repeated usage of the term. Before tracing the ‘career’ of mythical metaphors, however, let us briefly resume some further points of connection between myth and metaphor. 12 Zoltán Kövecses, Metaphor in Culture: Universality and Variation (Cambridge/ New York: Cambridge UP, 2005) 67-116. 13 See Claude Lévi-Strauss, Mythologica (Frankfurt a.M. : Suhrkamp, 1976) 436. See also: Bernhard Debatin, Die Rationalität der Metapher: Eine sprachphilosophische und kommunikationstheoretische Untersuchung (Berlin/ New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1995) 188-89. S IBYLLE B AUMBACH 116 While myth, in most cases, cannot serve as metaphor itself, it is based on metaphorical thinking : 14 Abstract notions are coupled with concrete objects to explain their meanings, which are conveyed through images or transformed into mythical figures, gods, demons, or heroes; as well as through a story, a fictional account which serves to explicate certain natural phenomena. Myth can also give an incentive for the creation of metaphors, which henceforth almost immediately become conventionalised. Thus, the expression ‘to grasp an opportunity’ derives from the Greek figure Kairos, the spirit of opportunity, who was completely bald except for a long lock of hair which hung down across his forehead. Running swiftly, Kairos can only be caught as he approaches; once he passes, you grasp at nothing. 15 In the proverb, the notion of a missed opportunity is expressed figuratively by linking the abstract idea to a more concrete action, which makes ‘opportunity’ tangible. The understanding of proverbs, therefore, is based on the same source-totarget-domain linkage 16 which is espoused by conceptual metaphor but which is also fundamental to myth. While it can be claimed that all language has evolved from metaphorical conceptions of the world insofar as the formation of words and the establishment of meaning in language is based on the same connection between an abstract target and a more concrete source domain, it is especially mythic language that is essentially metaphoric. Like metaphor, myth operates on a continuum of figurative and literal expression to explain certain phenomena and to articulate relations in a seemingly incoherent environment. Hence, Northrop Frye, for instance, argues that myth and metaphor are inseparable. 17 The highly figurative scope of mythical language might be regarded as characteristic of possible-world semantics. Mythical world-making becomes a means to account for certain inexplicable and indescribable phenomena. Thus, for myth there is no other opportunity than to resort to metaphors. The aesthetic experiences in the reception of myth and metaphor closely correspond as myth and metaphor follow the same strategies in the communication and generation of world-knowledge: They both provide the mind with a system of cultural categories and stimulate our imagination, which enables us to connect the relevant source and target domains and to establish mean- 14 Ernst Cassirer, “The Power of Metaphor,“ Language and Myth, trans. Susanne K. Langer (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1946) 83-99. 15 Callistratus, Descriptions 6, Phaedrus 5.8. 16 Raymond Gibbs Jr. and Herbert L. Colston, “Psycholinguistic Aspects of Phraseology: American Tradition,” Phraseologie / Phraseology: Ein internationales Handbuch zeitgenössischer Forschung / An International Handbook of Contemporary Research, ed. Harald Burger, vol. 2 (Berlin/ New York: de Gruyter, 2007) 832-33. 17 Northrop Frye, “The Koine of Myth: Myth as a Universally Intelligible Language,” Myth and Metaphor: Selected essays, 1974-1988, ed. Robert D. Denham (Charlottesville: U of Virginia P, 1990) 3-17. Travelling the Worlds of Myth and Metaphor 117 ing of mythemes and metaphoric expressions by re-contextualising these elements and retrieving their greater narratives. While myth comprises a network of metaphors, one could argue that every metaphor is a myth-inminiature or an abbreviated myth. 18 Operating within the mythical context and challenging the structural organisation of myth, metaphors “invite reinterpretation of not only the myths in which they are embedded but also those grammars of common discourse that have lost touch with the generative character of expression.” 19 Connecting to Blumenberg’s claim that metaphors can be conceived as relics which have been left on the way from mythos to logos, 20 one could regard them as residuum of mythical configurations of the ‘real’. In this context, metaphors would attest, as Sybille Krämer suggests, to a continuous mythical perception of reality, and the usage of ‘living’ metaphors in everyday speech would continuously reverse the transition from mythos to logos. 21 While this is not the place to further pursue the scholarly debate on the progression from mythos to logos or vice versa, the employment of metaphors in everyday language is not only an exercise in human creativity and imagination but also revitalizes mythical conceptions of the world in an enlightened, multimedia, and globalized world. Insofar as myth and metaphor provide ways of structuring and organising our experiences and knowledge of the world, they share the same aim and become equally indispensable for human thought. As Lakoff and Johnson remark, “they give order to our lives. […] [P]eople cannot function without myth any more than they function without metaphor.” 22 The significance of myth formations in the classification and organisation of human experiences is one of Claude Lévi-Strauss’ key arguments in his structural analysis of myth where he maintains that “the purpose of myth is to provide a logical model capable of overcoming a contradiction.” 23 To a certain extent, this notion can also be applied to metaphor even though it challenges traditional comparison theory, which assumes that metaphor can only describe preexisting similarities but not create new ones. 24 This claim, however, has been rejected by metaphor theorists such as Glucksberg and Lakoff and Johnson. 18 Stephen Daniel, Myth and Modern Philosophy (Philadelphia: Temple UP, 1990) 10. 19 Daniel 11. 20 Cf. Hans Blumenberg, Paradigmen zu einer Metaphorologie (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1998) 10. 21 Sybille Krämer, “Die Suspendierung des Buchstäblichen: Über die Entstehung metaphorischer Bedeutung,“ Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Philosophie 15 (1990): 68. 22 George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By (1980; Chicago/ London: U of Chicago P, 2003) 185-86. 23 Claude Lévi-Strauss, “The Structural Study of Myth,” Journal of American Folklore 68 (1955): 443. (repr. Claude Lévi-Strauss, Structural Anthropology, trans. Claire Jacobson and Brooke Grundfest Schoepf (1958; New York: Basic Books, 1963) ch. 11). 24 See Lakoff/ Johnson, Metaphors We Live By 153, 244; Glucksberg 66-83. S IBYLLE B AUMBACH 118 The latter even see it as one of the “four greatest historical barriers to the understanding of the profundity of metaphorical thought,” and add that “[t]he primary function of metaphor is to provide a partial understanding of one kind of experience in terms of another kind of experience. This may involve pre-existing isolated similarities, the creation of new similarities and more.” 25 The creative scope of metaphor seems to be even greater than that of myth considering that myth per definitionem entertains an intimate relation to logos. While myth is warranted and also, to a certain extent, sanctioned by its ancient, supposedly divine origin but first and foremost by its interconnection with logos, metaphor may present itself as fiction and distinguishes itself by opening up one possible explanation. 26 The differentiation between a fictional origin versus rootage in logos seems useful (with reservations) for distinguishing myth and metaphor. For the communication of knowledge, however, myth resorts to fictional elements, which are included in the mythos to allow for figurative world-making while entertaining a close connection to logos. One well-known example are the artificial myths used by Plato in his Dialogues. The most popular of them is his ‘myth of the cave,’ which emerges from a dialogue between Socrates and Glaucon and illustrates Plato’s theory of ideas. It tells the story of man’s progression from the grotto where people are chained and engage in the contemplation of shadows, which they regard as ‘real’ even though they are only reflections projected on the wall by ‘real’ objects passing in front of a fire behind their backs. One man manages to escape from darkness into light, from ignorance to knowledge, to daylight where he beholds the sun. The image of the sun as a source of light and understanding as well as the journey from the world of representations into the ‘real’ is, of course, per se highly metaphorical, involving conventionalised metaphors, the most popular of which are the sun and darkness. Hence, Plato’s cave has been read as a story about self-fulfilment, or transcendence of man’s faculties and his horizon of knowledge, and as a founding myth of cultural history. Furthermore, as well as being metaphorical in its content, Plato’s ‘cave’ has advanced to become a second-order metaphor, which can be retrieved as an expression for restricted knowledge and darkening of the senses. This expression, however, is a highly restricted metaphor insofar as it requires a pre-knowledge of Plato, his philosophy, and the myth itself. The significant role of second-order myth-metaphors as well as their development into cultural memory becomes much more obvious when it comes to mythical fig- 25 Lakoff/ Johnson, Metaphors We Live By 154. 26 Hans Blumenberg, Paradigmen zu einer Metaphorologie (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1998) 112. Travelling the Worlds of Myth and Metaphor 119 ures. At this point, let me stress that it is not my intent to blur the boundaries between metaphor, allegory, and symbol. Myths and mythical figures undoubtedly fulfil an allegorical and symbolical function. However, it is my contention that some myths (like Plato’s cave) and particularly mythical personae, for reasons which have been partly explained above and are to be further explicated in the following, have developed a metaphorical quality. As stated above, in the course of their transferral and re-contextualisation in different eras and cultures, some mythical figures become quite independent from the myths they were originally embedded in. Since the development and establishment of their ‘meaning’ depends on their (creative) reception, however, it is only those figures that appear in well-received and popular myths which have this particular metaphoric power. With repeated use of the same aspects connected to a specific mythical figure, its ‘meaning’ becomes condensed, which enables its career as metaphor. This is not to say that these figures are no longer ambiguous: They retain a certain semiotic complexity by maintaining the link to their original myths, which resonate in references to these figures even though they are not necessarily required for a basic understanding of their meaning. III The Career of Myth-Metaphors At the outset of myth-metaphors (1), there is the desire to explain an unknown (natural) phenomenon, which is met by weaving a mythical narrative that ties together the abstract and more concrete, the figurative and the literal to account for the unexplained. The myth under construction thereby benefits from already existing mythical stories, which provide the tools necessary for mythical world-making as well as a complex net of narratives to connect to. In a second stage (2), which can coincide with the invention of the myth, a mythical figure is introduced which incorporates a specific phenomenon or sensual experience. Taking the couple of Echo and Narcissus as an example, the ‘sound’ becomes represented by the former while the name of the ‘benumbed’ already anticipates his fate. As suggested above, the question of what is in a name becomes very significant in the interpretation of mythical figures and their metaphorical quality as many of them reveal their characters by name. As in the case of Echo and Narcissus, the coupling of two or more mythical figures becomes a useful tool for overcoming contradictions and providing a greater cognitive structure, which supports the memorization of the story and its establishment as part of the cultural archive. It is especially myth’s (self- )integration into the greater mythical network which secures its future reception and persistence: the more points of connection it can comprise, the more intimate the relation between its figures, the more effective it will become in embracing the world by its mythical-metaphorical framing. S IBYLLE B AUMBACH 120 The pairing of Narcissus and Echo, for instance, covers the domains of both visual and verbal or auditory perception and thus offers an image of two major strains of human communication — as well as explaining the failure of the faculties of eye and ear. While Narcissus does and, at the same time, does not see his own image, Echo’s speech and her lament fade away unheard even though they do not pass silently. As already suggested with regard to other mythical figures, the embodiment of Echo, who per definitionem lacks a physical appearance, can also be regarded as illustrating the way in which metaphor is constructed; the transferral of words into another ‘voice,’ which does not affect the content of speech but only alters the sound and manner of its presentation, can be read as an image of metaphoric translation. Metaphor connects, or at least pretends to connect, two expressions which reside in different domains but are essentially ‘the same’. Even though the relation between the verbal and the visual, between Narcissus and Echo, is an intimate one, it fades in the course of reception just like it is ruptured as the story of the myth proceeds and the two figures become more and more alienated as Narcissus remains utterly ignorant of ‘his’ Echo, focussing entirely on ‘his’ vis-à-vis. (3) Once the narrative web is woven, myth starts its travels across different times and cultures to communicate its knowledge. Through repetition of the same aspects of specific myths or mythical figures and through the embedding and translation of these aspects in popular and influential texts, their meaning becomes condensed as the stories and the figures are canonised. It is through reception and repetition of specific elements of a myth or mythical figure that mythemes emerge, which can be regarded as constant elements of a particular myth (as they were seen by Lévi-Strauss) 27 only on the basis of their persistence through time. (4) In the course of the reception and repetition of particular characteristics, mythical figures become more and more detached from the story they have been embedded in and establish themselves in cultural memory as independent personae insofar as they are regarded as embodying ‘their’ myth, which no longer has to be retrieved for their (basic) understanding. Rather than being clear-cut categories, there is a smooth transition between stages three and four, allowing a re-contextualisation of the figure in the original myth even after the process of detachment has begun. The possibility of evoking these figures independently from their stories allows for a considerable spectrum of meanings to be attached to them and to expand their canonised meaning: Going back to our example of Echo and Narcissus, their personae can be evoked as effective metaphors for the limitations of communication, or as an image of the ephemeral nature of love. While these meanings are preferably communicated by pairing these figures, Narcissus 27 Lévi-Strauss 428-44. Travelling the Worlds of Myth and Metaphor 121 has furthermore emerged as a metaphor for the confusion of reality and image, of self and other, signifier and signified, and can even be conceived as illustrating the numbness and subliminal awareness with which we embrace our own technology in daily use, as Marshall McLuhan suggested. 28 In their gradual detachment from the myth, mythical figures undergo a process of gradual abstraction: Eventually, their most popular ‘meanings’ are conventionalized and processed to finally enter our ‘lexicon’ as metaphors, comprising what establishes itself as the kernel of their myths. (5) Furthermore, a fifth level should be added, which illustrates the possibility of the Verfremdung of these metaphors: Mythical figures might appear in contexts which contradict the meaning and the myth they embody. These cases of ‘defective’ employment oppose the expectation of the recipient, who is urged to return to the original myth and reintegrate the myth-metaphor in its original context in order to make sense of this unexpected contradiction. While the process of counter-determination lies at the core of the creation of metaphor, mythical metaphors — provided that they are recognised as such by the recipient — raise certain expectations with regard to their usage, which motivates a return to the original myth if these expectations are not met. In addition to their own metaphoric career, some mythical figures also offer a conceptual framework, which could support the analysis of metaphors and metaphorical patterns. The mirror-image in the myth of Narcissus, for instance, comprises a physical as well as a psychological and philosophical dimension: The reflection of the face in the water resembles the (failed) reflection of the reflected and the reflecting, or (psychologically speaking) nonreflecting, self. The interrelation between the literal and the figurative as well as the reflection of their likeness and difference, which are seminal aspects in this specific myth, closely relate to the way in which metaphors are created and recognised. Narcissus, therefore, could not only be regarded as a metaphor but also as a kind of meta-reflection on the way metaphors are composed while also drawing attention to the possibility of their misconception and a fatal confusion of the literal and the figurative. Bringing Echo back into the picture, however, it is first and foremost the process of metamorphosis, which serves to conceptualise how to do things with words in order to create metaphorical expressions since the object of metamorphoses essentially remains the same in its translation from one domain to the other, from the literal to the figurative. 28 Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (Toronto: McGraw-Hill, 1964) 51. S IBYLLE B AUMBACH 122 IV Myth-Metaphors in Psychoanalysis and Science The metamorphosed figures which we encounter in Ovid experience further ‘translations’ as they enter the language of science. In fact, science and especially psychoanalysis had a considerable share in the promotion and establishment of these figures. It was Sigmund Freud who brought ‘Narcissus’ and ‘Oedipus,’ as well as their mythical stories, back to people’s attention and secured these figures ever-lasting fame as metaphors. His seminal essay “On Narcissism” establishes the self-consuming youth as archetype of a narcissistic personality, which is characterised by the obsession with its past, present (and future) ‘images,’ with its received and projected identities. Expanding on this essay, George Lacan also draws on the myth to explain the mirror stage, in which the child, presented with its imago for the first time, recognises and identifies itself. Henceforth, the term ‘narcissist’ has remained a popular metaphor for self-obsession. Freud’s utilisation of the Oedipusmyth to communicate ideas about the psycho-sexual development of children had a similar effect: After he introduced the term in his Interpretation of Dreams (1899), the ‘Oedipus complex’ became a universal metaphor for expressing the desire for sexual involvement with a parent of the opposite sex, and has prompted a further myth-metaphor, coined by C. G. Jung: the ‘Electra complex,’ which applies to the same desire in female children. Freud’s reading of “Medusa’s Head” as an image of man’s innate fear of castration provides another example of condensing a myth to its psychoanalytic value, which then becomes regarded as being at the centre of the myth. The reason why particularly psychoanalysis utilised myth as metaphorical models for their theories lies in their ‘ability’ to expose the unconscious. According to C. G. Jung, “[m]yths are original revelations of the preconscious psyche, involuntary statements about unconscious psychic happenings.” 29 Furthermore, as narratives, which are read and ‘experienced,’ myth is not only regarded to prove the existence of an unconscious but also to provide access to it, to revive the myth in connection with one’s own personal story, which is only feasible in projection. While psychoanalysis itself presents readings which are highly debatable and which themselves, as Wittgenstein claimed, amount to a “powerful mythology,” 30 they were very influential in promoting certain mythical figures as metaphors and prompting the coinage of further metaphorical expressions. One of the most recent myth-metaphors has been introduced by the psychologist Robert J. Lifton in his work on The Protean Self (1993) and was fur- 29 Carl G. Jung, “The Psychology of the Child Archetype,” trans. R. F. C. Hull et al., The Collected Works of C. G. Jung vol. 9.1, ed. Sir Herbert Read et al. (1959; Princeton: Princeton UP, 1968) 154. 30 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Lectures and Conversations on Aesthetics: Psychology and Religious Belief, ed. Cyril Barrett (Berkeley: U of California P, 1966) 52. Travelling the Worlds of Myth and Metaphor 123 ther developed in sociology by Jeremy Rifkin. The ‘Protean self’ alludes to the Greek sea-god Proteus, who possessed great prophetic knowledge but escaped tedious questions by constantly changing his shape. The metaphor thus accounts for the multiple role-play as well as for the extremely flexible identities people are taking on in their lives as a reaction to the radical changes in their environments and the strong influence of the world-wideweb. Proteus entered scientific discourse even before the ‘Protean self’ was introduced to denote a certain kind of bacteria, which was associated with the Greek god, and furthermore appeared as metaphor in the ‘Proteus- Syndrome,’ which referred to a congenital disorder, in which the overgrowth of certain body parts, muscles, or skin causes physical deformity. The connection of myth, metaphor and science, however, does not seem obvious at first since scientific language is supposed to be objective, literal, unemotional and somewhat colourless. According to John Locke, metaphor cannot be a vehicle for truth and consequently has to be banned from scientific discourse: […] all the artificial and figurative application of words eloquence hath invented, are for nothing else but to insinuate wrong ideas, move the passions, and thereby mislead the judgement […] and therefore […] they are certainly, in all discourses that pretend to inform or instruct, wholly to be avoided. 31 And yet, scientific language includes figurative and metaphoric expressions, for instance in the naming of certain phenomena: Thus, we meet the Medusa, for instance, as adult jellyfish. The similarities between the mythical figure and its fellow-being in the Atlantic are self-evident considering the animal’s long, poisonous tentacles. The scientific ‘career’ of the Gorgon also affected its reception in literature and inspired Sylvia Plath’s metaphoric usage of the Medusa in her eponymous poem “Medusa” (1962). There, the Gorgon is employed to describe the dysfunctional relationship between Plath and her mother, who lives across the Atlantic, yet still reaches out for her daughter as if for a prey with her “eely tentacles.” The metaphor does not end here but is expanded to resemble the “Atlantic cable,” which crosses the sea and continues to transport her mother’s dreaded, ‘hissing’ voice to the other continent. The different employments of the Medusa-jellyfish-metaphor in science and in literature suggest a different aim in the usage of metaphorical expressions. Whereas in literature this metaphor serves to defamiliarize the familiar, in science, it is used to define something unfamiliar by something else that is (supposedly) more familiar. Scientific discourse employs metaphorical expressions as media of knowledge transfer and exchange. As James Bono has pointed out, metaphors are seminal for science “because they ground com- 31 John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (London: Basset, 1690) bk. 3, chap. 10. S IBYLLE B AUMBACH 124 plex scientific texts and discourses in other social, political, religious, or ‘cultural’ texts and discourses.“ 32 In this context, Sylvia Plath’s poem serves as an illustrative example of how the communication between myth, literature, and science can benefit from exchange, which is fostered by the usage and interchange of metaphors. V The Regeneration of Myth-Metaphors As suggested by the examples given above, which provide some insight into the metaphorical quality of mythical figures, myth and metaphor closely interlink. Myth-metaphors do not only permeate literature and can be traced in scientific discourse; they not only form a seminal part in everyday communication but they also shed some light on ways of how to do things with metaphor and offer a means for further conceptualising our metaphorical and figurative thinking. As the daily usage of these metaphors indicates, myth becomes more and more prominent as an alternative medium for the communication of knowledge, which retrieves ways of worldmaking which seem to have been lost in the secularised information society. Without necessarily being recognised immediately at their appearance, mythical figures succeed in reawakening and re-establishing themselves in contemporary culture almost like ‘Trojan horses’. Disclosing their meaning, they provide access to a complex net of mythical stories, whose revival and retrieval they promote in their everyday usage. It is especially in the age of multi-media that these ‘dormant’ mythmetaphors, once re-introduced, can become widely spread in very little time — even if they are ‘truncated’. This last image motivates a return to the Medusa, who serves as an adequate example in this context insofar as her broad reception is already anticipated in her myth and her ‘career’ calls further mythmetaphors into existence. It is said that immediately after her decapitation, the winged horse Pegasus sprang from her severed neck. By a kick from his hoof, thus the story goes, Pegasus opened the fountain Hippocrene on the Muse’s mountain Helicon. Sacred to the Muses, the fountain was associated with imagination and literature: From it sprang poetry — and with it also metaphor. 32 James J. Bono, “Science, Discourse, and Literature: The Role/ Rule of Metaphor in Science,” Literature and Science: Theory and Practice, ed. S. Peterfreund (Boston, MA: Northwestern UP, 1990) 61. 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