A Study On The Metaphor Themes On Human In Tennyson’s Poetry

The world we live in is full of metaphors to which poetry is closely related.This thesis,from the perspective of cognitive linguistics,based on Lakoff and Johnson’s conceptual metaphor theory（CMT）,attempts to make an analysis of the metaphor themes on human in Tennyson’s poetry.Through statistics,the thesis found out that the metaphor themes on human in Tennyson’s poetry can be roughly divided into five categories-HUMAN LIFE IS X,HUMAN BODY IS X,HUMAN EMOTION IS X,HUMAN VALUE IS X,HUMAN KNOWLEDGE IS X.In each category,in terms of the different source domains,the conceptual metaphors can be subdivided into total 22 kinds,with respectively different proportions.For the major metaphors that appear 3 or more times,the author takes a depth analysis of their working mechanism under the framework of CMT,so as to explore the cognitive basis of their construction and the literary effects they achieve.Further analysis shows that the experiential basis of these conceptual metaphors mainly lie in the influence of human physical experience and specific contexts,between which the latter one mainly refers to the influence of Christianity and Taoism,the geographical environment of Great Britain and its ocean culture,as well as the rapid development of astronomy in the 19^thcentury,etc.Through analysis,this study takes Tennyson’s poetry in the Victorian Era as the research object,further proves the universality of metaphor that metaphor is ubiquitous,it is rooted in human physical experience and specific context,thus serving as the basis of human cognition,thinking,and language,and playing an important role in comprehending and explaining abstract things.Besides that,as an example of applying CMT to analyze literary works,this study further proves the effectiveness and importance of CMT,an important cognitive theory,to the interpretation of literary works,and explains its role in bridging the gap between literature and linguistics.In addition,this thesis analyzes the metaphor themes on human in Tennyson’s poetry from the perspective of cognitive linguistics,which is a useful attempt to expand the research field of Tennyson’s poetry and provide some references for future research.