METAPHOR’S FORGOTTEN BROTHER: A SURVEY OF METONYMY IN BIBLICAL HEBREW POETRY

Abstract

Metaphor has long been a subject of interest for biblical scholarship; however metonymy, which is closely related to metaphor, has received far less attention. Metaphor and metonymy are distinct in their conceptual processes, metaphor juxtaposes two conceptually distinct domains and metonymy creates relationships within one conceptual domain, but they share many similarities and often function in concert in poetry. Although metaphor has received the lion’s share of our attention, further study of metonymy will enrich our knowledge of metaphor and the poetics behind biblical poetry (i.e., the mechanisms and principles that govern poetry). This article introduces the two main forms of metonymy: taxonomic and partonomic. Taxonomic metonymy is based upon relationships between a more comprehensive and less comprehensive category (e.g., SPECIFIC FOR GENERAL), and partonomic metonymy is based upon contiguous relationships (e.g., PART FOR WHOLE). It surveys the various poetic functions of partonomic metonymy (semantic compaction, oblique reference, and semantic multivalency), and concludes by illustrating how accounting for metonymy can aid in solving the interpretive difficulties in the poetic passage of Jr 5:15-16.