Creation vs. Evolution: From Day of St. Matthew to Bilbo's and Frodo's Birthday · Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: Were Old Texts Very Clouded by Figurative Language as Opposed to Literal? — No.
Question: What are the reasons for the decrease in the use of figurative language in modern writing and speaking compared to older texts like Shakespeare's works?
https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-reasons-for-the-decrease-in-the-use-of-figurative-language-in-modern-writing-and-speaking-compared-to-older-texts-like-Shakespeares-works/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl-1
- Hans-Georg Lundahl
- none/ apprx Masters in Latin (language) & Greek (language), Lund University
- 22.IX.2024
- I don’t think there is a decrease.
In some kinds of texts, figurative language is supposed to be absent, but is really present as technical terms, many of which are figurative.
An automobile is not self moving like a man or a beast is, it is actually moved by petrol and by pushing things like buttons and gears and turning a key to start the combustion engine, which can with the same ease also be turned off. So, automobile is figurative.
Now, Shakespear is a very different topic. In Shakespear or Beowulf, you often find simile after simile for the same thing, real heaps of figurative language. But that is because they relied on oral performance before microphones, and in audiences that tended to be more boisterous than modern audiences at theatres or poetry recitals. Much more boisterous.
So, the oral performers (and those who wrote their text) repeated themselves for 30 seconds for each major point, and in order to do so without being boring, they used figurative language much more than someone would use in daily speech or in writing meant to be enjoyed by a reader. That’s why Shakespear’s works is a very bad example, like Beowulf, in this regard.
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