If you could say it, you would not need metaphor. If you could
conceptualize it, it would not be metaphor. If you could explain it,
you would not use metaphor.
-- Nelle Morton. The Journey is Home (1985).
Philologists and language philosophers tell us that the meaning of
metaphor cannot be determined nor its content fixed, since it has no
content. In this sense netaphor is unique. It must be set apart from
simile, analogy, allegory, and other figures of speech which have two
knowns, one to be compared with the other.
-- Nelle Morton. The Journey is Home (1985).
The action of metaphor, then, cuts two ways: 1. iconoclastic and 2.
revelatory. Metaphor begins its movement by exposing the nerve of
daily existence (the false gods, the narrow horizons, the
mundaneness), causing it to surface, then shattering it in order to
create space for the new. Metaphoric movement ends by introducing a
new logic--by ushering in a new reality and greater vision.
-- Nelle Morton. The Journey is Home (1985).