Visible Poetry: Metaphor and Metonymy in the Paintings of Rene Magritte

The relationship between verbal and visual images is explored in painting of Ren6 Magritte, Belgian surrealist who said that the function of painting is to make poetry visible. I Magritte uses some of poet's tools, notably figurative language, as he translates metaphor and metonymy into visual form. The work of structural linguist Roman Jakobson, whose interest in metaphor and metonymy is well known, facilitates an examination of Magritte's images. Metaphor and metonymy are terms usually applied to literature, but by showing that these two types of figurative language are based on relationships of similarity and contiguity which exist outside of verbal realms, Jakobson made those terms applicable to visual expression. Jakobson notes that the internal relation of similarity (and contrast) underlies metaphor; external relation of contiguity (and remoteness) determines metonymy.2 For example, stimulus of word hut might produce the following substitutive reactions: tautology hut, synonyms cabin and hovel; antonym palace, and metaphors den and burrow.... [A]ll these responses are linked to stimulus by semantic similarity (or contrast). Metonymic responses to same stimulus, such as thatch, litter, poverty, combine and contrast positional similarity with semantic contiguity.3 Metaphor associates entities on basis of their similarity or dissimilarity, while metonymy associates entities on basis of a spatial or temporal relationship. Roland Barthes points out that Jakobson pioneered use of terms metaphor and metonymy in extra-verbal realms by