Windows and Doors: A Poet Reads Literary Theory

Metonymy, the Neglected (but Necessary) Trope

86 Metonymy, the Neglected (but Necessary) Trope Medieval rhetorician Peter Ramus lists only four important tropes: metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche (a part for the whole, which later commentators subsume into metonymy), and irony.1 Metaphor has received by far the most critical attention, and is also the trope most closely connected with poetry, as for example in Percy Shelley’s observation that “the language of poets is vitally metaphorical.”2 At the time (June 2013) I am revising this essay, the search terms “metaphor and poetry” yield 2,685 hits in the Modern Language Association bibliography, while “metonymy and poetry” result in only 173. Indeed, I’ve never seen an essay about metonymy for an audience of poets, possibly because that trope is so poorly understood, despite its enduring importance. In simple terms, metaphor (Greek, “to carry through”) refers to comparison, while metonymy (Greek, “through the name”) refers to substitution. Because all nouns “substitute” for the things they name and are therefore metonyms, most poems contain some element of metonymy. When a poem names a person or place or a date, we might recognize that a substitution is taking place, simply because the poet has chosen a specific detail over others. Some poets favor metaphor over metonymy—Paul Celan, Louise Glück, Eugenio Montale, and Franz Wright, for example . Metaphor makes their poems seem universal and timeless, primarily because they aren’t anchored in time and place. For instance, in Stanley Plumly’s poem “The Marriage in the Trees” a marriage is compared, via extended metaphor, to a series of trees.3 One of the sophisticated aspects of the poem is the way 87 the marriage is compared not to one particular tree, but to a series , signifying marriage as a live entity rather than a static thing, an entity that must change form if it is to survive the years. Marriage is not “like” trees as much as it is “in trees.” The poem favors metaphor over metonymy because the comparison of the marriage to trees is more important than naming trees, persons, or stating dates and places. But perhaps trying for timelessness is a fool’s errand. When a poem is more metonymic, it admits its partial status, the writer choosing one detail out of many to represent the object or person, just as a culture chooses which things are important by naming, producing, and reproducing them. Generally these reproductions reinforce existing hierarchies of power, as when, for instance, we refer to a photocopy machine as a Xerox even if that is not its manufacturer. I’ve heard many poets denigrate poems containing proper nouns on the grounds that specificity in a poem prevents it being “universal.” Take, for example, the diary-like poems of Frank O’Hara, anchored in particular time, place, and objects. Relying less on image and metaphor and more on metonymy, they are infused with the detail of a particular life. They “date” themselves , literally, in the way eighteenth-century poets John Dryden and Alexander Pope date themselves by addressing particular political issues and by using names. “The Day Lady Died”4 could not be written today, a good thing because the poem exists also as history. Because metonymic poems do not presume to be “universal,” they do not scorn pop culture or “low” references. Thus a critic like Richard Ohmann wonders if using product brand names turns a poem into advertising.5 Is there a way to see the substitution of a brand name for a generic in a positive light—as a metonym fixing the poem in time and place, not necessarily something that reduces the poem’s value? Harryette Mullen’s poem “Dim Lady” is a metonymic transcription of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130. “My mistress’s eyes are nothing like the sun” becomes “My honeybunch’s peepers are nothing like neon.” By updating the diction and incorporating proper nouns such as “Red Lobster ,” “Liquid Paper,” “Slinkys,” Muzak,” and “Marilyn Monroes,” Mullen emphasizes the effect of capitalism on language—and 88 love. Four hundred years after Shakespeare, the nouns “roses,” “sun,” “perfume,” and “music” sound generic to ears attuned to the multiplicity of products created by capitalism. And today, the word “mistress” suggests government officials caught in illicit affairs, while “honeybunch” is a slang term of endearment, albeit one that may no longer be used fifty years from now.6 While writers can surprise us with new metaphorical comparisons , metonymy relies...