Metaphors of mind : an eighteenth-century dictionary / Brad Pasanek.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Pasanek, Brad, 1974- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Metaphor--History--18th century--Dictionaries.

Metaphor.

English language--Terms and phrases--Dictionaries.

English language.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (391 p.)

Place of Publication:

Baltimore, Maryland : Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Brad Pasanek's unusual work is the written report of a massive digital humanities project that involved searching 18th-century texts for the many ways writers use metaphors to characterize the mind. The book takes a selection of broad metaphorical categories that the author discovered in his digital research - including animals, coinage, metal, rooms, and writing - and examines particular examples within each category. Pasanek also frames the "dictionary" elements of the project with a more theoretical discussion of what he calls "desultory reading," a form of "unsystematic perusal" of writing exemplified in the way we approach dictionaries. Pasanek not only argues that 18th-century thinkers largely employed desultory reading, but also that his work on this very project is itself an instance of this approach. The project succeeds twofold: in treating 18th-century writing as its topic and in exemplifying its approach. Pasanek maintains an accompanying website (https://metaphorized.com) that collects the results of his digital searches.

Contents:

Animals

Coinage

Court

Empire

Fetters

Impressions

Inhabitants

Metal

Mirror

Rooms

Writing.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

1-4214-1689-1

OCLC:

911387518