A Comparative Study of Time Metaphor from Lakoff and Johnson’s Perspectives with the Concept of Time in the Poems of Alfred de Musset

The theory of Lakoff and Johnson led to a great change in the recognition of metaphor and created a new approach in this field. Time as an abstract concept has always been understood through other concepts known to mankind such as place and object, so it is one of the fundamental and conceptual metaphors. According to triple division of the theory of conceptual metaphor, the metaphor of time as a place or an object is a conventional metaphor. In the poems of Alfred de Musset, the 18th century French poet, the metaphor of time has often been dealt with two approaches, linear time and periodic-cyclic time . In the romantic poems of de Musset as an experiential poet, time has a linear course; from eternity to the eternal which are both mental categories, and all emotional and behavioral experiences of the poet are formed along the patch of this assumed line, and sometimes in his poetry, the narrator of his experiences gives a myth to the time, and adds rhetorical image of the beauty and attractiveness of these poems.

Keywords:

Conceptual Metaphors , Mental Concepts , Time , Abstract Concepts , Cognitive Metaphors