One of the similes that we discussed at my workshop on Saturday was from T.S. Eliot's Love Song Of J Arthur Prufrock.

"When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;"

I was more or less a lone voice in disliking this simile. My argument is that the point of a simile is to create an image in the mind of the reader which connects the literal with the figurative and hence makes the literal more vivid. This particular one is so obscure that all it does is jar me from the poem while I think "what the hell does that mean?"
There were about twenty people present and no two of them read this the same way. Their interpretations of what it meant were imaginative and varied but to me that just proves that it is too obscure to create the necessary link in the reader's mind.

Another example we had, this time a metaphor, was from Seamus Heaney's "The Conway Stewart".

"The nib uncapped,
Treating it to its first deep snorkel
In a newly opened ink bottle."

Initially I liked this one - I still do like the sound of the words - but then it occurred to me that the purpose of a snorkel isn't to get liquid in, it's to keep liquid out, and that killed the image for me. Once again nobody agreed with me.

What do people here think? Are these good or bad uses of simile and metaphor?

quote:

Originally posted by BobHale:
One of the similes that we discussed at my workshop on Saturday was from T.S. Eliot's Love Song Of J Arthur Prufrock.

Isn't it "J Alfred Prufrock"? Perhaps you were thinking of J Arthur Rank

quote:

"When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;"

I don't know the poem too well, but when I first came across it I assumed that Eliot was deliberately trying to create a bad piece of imagery.

Can't really comment on your other example.

Yes. And probably for that reason.
Sometimes our brains and fingers communicate badly.

The full text of Heaney's, "The Conway Stewart" can be found here.

The simile that generated the most discussion (with me again being in a minority in saying that I couldn't derive anything from it) was from Selima Hill's Our Softness Is Appalling.

I can't find the poem on line but the simile in question was

"Love is like a bag of warm eyeballs
passed from hand to hand in the dark."

Make of that what you will. I haven't seen the full poem and have no context but as it stands I can't derive a meaning at all.

Love ISN'T like a bag of warm eyeballs?

A snorkel sucks in air, not (as you mentioned) liquid. So that stretches the language a bit too far.

I really stretched trying to drag a meaning out of the warm eyeballs comparison and eventually, and it's bloody convoluted, came up with the possibility that that what you would normally hand around in a bag is chocolates and everybody likes chocolate but that if you were handed a bag of chocolates that turned out to be warm eyeballs you'd be very disappointed.

Hence it could be suggesting that love is like being given something you think will be nice that turns out to be horrible.
Apparently she has a consistently gloomy and downbeat take on life.

I was told that her poetry would probably appeal to me, which says nothing about her poetry but a lot about how I am viewed by my peers.

quote:

Originally posted by Proofreader:
A snorkel sucks in air, not (as you mentioned) liquid. So that stretches the language a bit too far.

I don't think so. A snorkel can take in water. But more importantly, to have a deep snorkel would be to be immersed deeply in liquid, connected to the surface by a snorkel. That's what the nib is doing.

quote:

A snorkel can take in water

Sort of defeats the purpose, doesn't it?

I don't like either of the similes, but particularly the first does nothing for me. An evening spread out against the sky is beautiful to me. I can envision it. But...a patient etherised upon a table??? Forget that ether is no longer used...it's just too clinical.

You nailed both of these, Bob, in my opinion.

I've been asked by my writing group if, in my very last meeting with them in just over a week, I will do a similar workshop for them.

I'm happy to oblige and my first thought was to choose some of my favourite literary similes and metaphors*.

Then I had a better idea. So what I'd like is for people here to supply me wit their favourite examples, either ones they know from literature or ones they have made up themselves.

So people, over to you. Give me your metaphors and similes and I'll be happy as a pig in shit. (Too commonplace a simile to use, I'm afraid - far too clichéd).

(* As an example of mixed metaphor you'd go a long way to beat Mr Shakespeare and his

"To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them?")

I think my all-time favourite literary metaphor is from the start of L.P. Hartley's "The Go-Between":

"The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there".

Concise, immediately comprehensible, and arresting. The fact that it's become something of a cliche since the novel was published shouldn't detract from its effectiveness.

I liked the snorkel metaphor. Inhaling ink is what a pen does for a living, so ink=air.

The Eliot example was, as stated, probably deliberately bad.

I absolutely loved the "warm eyeballs in the dark!" She's playing with the adage that love is blind, and wonderfully so, IMHO.

As for favourite metaphors, there's the "Whale-Road" in Beowulf, And I don't think you can do better than Opelia's words in Hamlet, act III: O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!
The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue, sword;
The expectancy and rose of the fair state,
The glass of fashion and the mould of form,
The observed of all observers, quite, quite down!
And I, of ladies most deject and wretched,
That suck'd the honey of his music vows,
Now see that noble and most sovereign reason,
Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh;
That unmatch'd form and feature of blown youth
Blasted with ecstasy: O, woe is me,
To have seen what I have seen, see what I see!