HISTORIOGRAPHY OF SIMILE: THE AGE OF ANTIQUITY

Abstract

The paper deals with the ancient interpretation of simile based on the primary sources; it proves that the explorations of ancient Greek and Roman philosophers, logicians, and orators cannot be considered naive in contrast to the modern ones regarded as scientific. Attention is drawn to the fact that not only did they lay the foundations for the study of figurative speech, but also outlined the vectors of modern research: using a contemporary terminology they differentiated between logical and figurative comparisons (similes), similes of equality and inequality; discussed explicatures and implicatures, the cognitive nature of the phenomenon, types of tenors and vehicles, the role of a comparison marker, source and target mappings as well as the main functions of metaphorical speech. The article sheds some light on the most profound conceptualization of simile by Aristotle, which is often misinterpreted in modern literature, as well as on less popular sources such as Rhetorica ad Herennium, Cicero, Quintilian, and Seneca. The question concerning the key terminology translation is touched upon in the paper. It is estimated that several stages of translation (from Greek to Latin, from Latin to modern European languages) with the focus on different semes of the original terminological lexemes εἰκών and παραβολή have resulted in somewhat different approaches used in the theory of simile in the eastern and western traditions. It is found out that modern terms for simile in Ukrainian and English are not fully equivalent, they display the result of generalization, which in the process of translation has led to the blending of the originally used several terms in classical ancient literature into one, not always covering all meanings of the original source and including different meanings in different languages.