First published in 1973, this book is about Shakespeare, language and drama. The first part introduces some common ideas of anthropology and linguistics into an area where they serve as a base for the discussion of usually literary matters. It attempts to link language to our experience of speech -- examining its range, texture, and social functions. In part two, the author argues that in Elizabethan culture there was a greater investment in the complexities and demands of speech due to the widespread illiteracy of the time. It examines eight of Shakespeare's plays, together with one of...

First published in 1972, this work examines the complex concept of metaphor. It defines the term by placing the various key ideas about the nature of metaphor in their literary and social context, and in doing so, it traces the developing history of the concept. This account has considerable range, beginning with Aristotle and ending with the work of modern linguist and anthropologists. From this analysis emerge two opposed yet complementary ideas: the classical view of metaphor, which sees metaphor as a detachable device imported into language, and the romantic view, which sees metaphor...