Symbol, Metaphor, and Simile -- oh my!

These are the tools of language, especially poetry—with which we Think. “All there is to thinking,” writes Robert Frost, is just saying one thing in terms of another, putting together an unfamiliar thing and something quite familiar—which is a metaphor all it’s own, Family is embedded in it; and “embedded” is another, bed partners.

It’s hard to get away from metaphor when we want to know what a human situation is like; that is, a situation of the mind, the psyche, a situation involving thought and feeling.



But first, simple definitions: simile is the simplest: Simile tells you what this “human situation” is like using “like” or “as” just so that it’s perfectly clear.

Here are the first lines of a poem using two Similes:

Love
like sun emblazoned Aspen
against spears of pine
on the near ridge;
like Aspen in dabs and brush strokes,
yellow and orange on the far ridge.

Metaphor says that the unfamiliar object or situation is the familiar object or situation, which for a moment gives the metaphor more punch than a simile.

Men’s Choir

The center isle is full of bulls . . .

The processional unsprings
With heavy tread and rocking shoulders
as if for stampede . . .

They stand self-conscious, sheepish . . .

For a moment or so we think of these guys as bulls. And the poem extends this by adding some bullish qualities to their walk. This is called an extended metaphor.

Another metaphor is introduced; once the heavy-tread processional is over, they are sheep, sheepish. And then, again, bulls, as the “bellows fill.”

Poetry, using symbol, metaphor, and simile—without explaining, compacts meaning, sometimes in just a word.