Trope - denten-courses/metaphor-media GitHub Wiki
Synthesis
The dictionary definition of a trope is simply a "figurative or metaphorical use of a word or expression" (Merriam-Webster) which is a huge umbrella over other literary terms. Metaphor, therefore, falls under the subset of tropes, as well as nearly any other form of figurative language.
Burke and Buck assume that a trope is a superset of metaphors and their cousins - irony, metonymy, and synecdoche. But, like a lot of the other texts we've read, these are fairly prescriptive approaches. Other terms we've discussed, like allegories and fables, still fall under the broader definition of tropes. However, it's hard to find a place for them in the four iron categories that they have defined.
A trope can also draw from other materials and themes. In addition to a metaphor invoking some "tension" in the reader that then creates the metaphor's power upon release, a trope transcends the written text by inducing recall - the reader associates the context with the last time they encountered a similar device. The literary power of the trope comes not from the tension it creates, but the connections.
These various characterizations of a trope are all fairly cohesive. Their strongest unifying feature is the notion of some recurring form of symbolism and its relation to other literary devices. A metaphor is defined by its self-contained meaning, but a trope is defined by its relation to the surrounding corpus: how it repeats itself across cultures and media, regardless of its content. A trope is similar to a metaphor in that both are shorthand for meaning, but tropes are much more broad.
Hobbes counters this idea by introducing the trope as distinct from a metaphor, mentioning them both in the same sentence but perhaps implying they're different things: "Metaphors, and Tropes of speech". However, he does mention them in a fairly dismissive tone, so his distinctions between the two aren't as thoughtfully prescriptive as his other distinctions.
Tropes are usually mentioned in modern language with some context (like "the trope of x") instead of brought up on their own. For example, the trope of assigning real-life office metaphors to operating systems occurs incredibly often. This happens because it has proven to be useful. The trope of the shoehorned romantic relationship in blockbuster films is also a recurring event, but in entertainment a narrative trope is usually viewed negatively since it implies a lack of creativity.
Merriam-Webster Dictionary, 3rd ed., s.v. "trope."
Quotes
From all this it follows that all the tropes (and they are all reducible to the four types above discussed), which have hitherto been considered ingenious inventions of writers, were necessary modes of expression of all the first poetic nations, and had originally their full native propriety. But these expressions of the first nations later became figurative when, with the further development of the human mind, words were invented which signified abstract forms or genera comprising their species or relating parts with their wholes. And here begins the overthrow of two common errors of the grammarians: that prose speech is proper speech, and poetic speech improper; and that prose speech came first, and afterwards speech in verse.
Vico, Giambattista. The New Science. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1948).
Hugh Blair states the rationale of this division somewhat decisively in the following passage: "But although the barrenness of language and the want of words be doubtless one cause of the invention of tropes, yet it is not the only nor perhaps even the principal source of this form of speech. Tropes have arisen more frequently and spread themselves wider from the influence which imagination possesses over language." But by far the most definitive separation of metaphors into two classes on the basis of their origin has been made by Max Miller. "I call it radical metaphor," he says, "when a root which means to shine is applied to form the names not only of the fire or the sun, but of the spring of the year, the morning light, the brightness of thought, or the joyousout burst of hymns of praise From this we must distinguish poetical metaphor, namely, when a noun or verb ready made and assigned to one definite object or action is transferred poetically to another object or action."
The explicit statement of the presence of three constituents is made for us by Adams, Hepburn, and Paul. "In the various forms of figurative speech, included under the denomination of tropes, there are three things which require our attention; the literal, or, as it is sometimes called, the proper meaning of the word; the idea meant to be conveyed by it; and the chain of communication between them. This chain of communication is no other than the association of ideas."
Buck, Gertrude. The Metaphor: A Study in the Psychology of Rhetoric. (Ann Arbor: The Island Press, 1899).
The "literal" or "realistic" applications of the four tropes usually go by a different set of names. Thus:
For metaphor we could substitute perspective;
For metonymy we could substitute reduction;
For synecdoche we could substitute representation;
For irony we could substitute dialectic.
Burke, Kenneth. "Four Master Tropes." The Kenyon Review 3, no. 4 (1941): 421-38. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4332286.
Examples
"And therefore in reasoning, a man must take heed of words ; which besides the signification of what we imagine of their nature, have a signification also of the nature, disposition, and interest of the speaker; such as are the names of Vertues, and Vices; For one man calleth Wisdome, what another calleth feare; and one cruelty, what another justice; one prodigality, what another magnanimity ; and one gravity, what another stupidity, &c. And therefore such names can never be true grounds of any ratiocination. No more can Metaphors, and Tropes of speech : but these are less dangerous, because they profess their inconstancy; which the other do not. "
Hobbes, Thomas. Leviathan. (London: Cambridge University Press, 1904).
It is an evanescent moment that we shall deal with - for not only does the dividing line between the figurative and literal usages shift, but also the four tropes shade into one another. Give a man but one of them, tell him to exploit its possibilities, and if he is thorough in doing so, he will come upon the other three.
Burke, Kenneth. "Four Master Tropes." The Kenyon Review 3, no. 4 (1941): 421-38. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4332286.
Two kinds of images exist: the image as a practical means of thinking, as a means of grouping objects, and the poetic image, as a means of intensifying an impression. Let me clarify with an example. Walking down the street, I see a man wearing an old crumpled hat drop his bag. I call him back: “You, old hat, you’ve dropped your bag!” This is an example of a purely prosaic trope. Another example: “This joke is old hat. I heard it ages ago.” This image is a poetic trope.`
Shklovsky, Victor. Art, As Device. (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 1974).