Tropes & Figures
Metaphor
Metaphor is a trope that transfers the name of one object to another on the basis of their similarity, creating a hidden, condensed comparison without the conjunctions "like," "as if." Metaphor is the most powerful means of artistic imagery: it brings together distant phenomena, revealing an unexpected commonality in them, and thereby illuminates the world anew. A distinction is drawn between linguistic metaphors (dead, habitual: "the leg of a table") and individual-authorial ones (fresh, poetic). An extended metaphor may organise an entire image or work. In Ukrainian poetry brilliant masters of metaphor were Pavlo Tychyna with his "sunny clarinets" and Bohdan-Ihor Antonych with his mythopoetic vision of nature. Metaphor is the central concept of the theory of tropes.
Video
Compare “Metaphor” with another term
Meaning, origins and distinction — side by side.
Distinction
Both juxtapose objects by similarity, but frame it differently. A simile names BOTH members OPENLY and links them with "like," "as" ("strong as a lion"). A metaphor is a hidden, condensed comparison WITHOUT the conjunction, where the transfer of meaning is concealed and the image is presented as identity ("a lion" for a person). Metaphor is more compact and bold; simile, more graphic and transparent.
