Listen to a Short History of Metaphor

Yesterday I talked a little about metaphors and I quoted from Davidson's paper What Metaphors Mean. Davidson's paper was philosophy; it only used examples from literature to make a point about how language works. But reading about this topic yesterday I stumbled across this Radio 4 show that discussed the evolution of metaphor in the history of literature. I thought some of you might enjoy it. Granted, it jumps around a lot and there is some conceptual sloppiness going on (some of the examples they discuss are not metaphors), but it's a pretty interesting conversation. They discuss Homer, Milton, Spenser, Donne, Shakespeare, Dickens, Woolf and possibly a couple of other people I can't remember right now. 

If you're in the UK, you can listen to the show here. If you're not in the UK, there is a browser extension on Chrome called Hola that lets you pretend you are :)

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