Abstract

Aristotle had said in The Poetics, Richards explains, that greatest thing by is to have a command of metaphor' (p. 89).* Richards finds himself in accord here, but not with what follows, for Aristotle went on to say (as Richards quotes), This alone cannot be imparted to another: it is the mark of genius, for to make good metaphors implies an eye for resemblances. I do not know how much influence remark has had, Richards comments, but question it for a moment and we can discover in it . . . here at the very beginning of the subject, the evil presence of three of the assumptions which have ever since prevented the study of this greatest thing by far from taking the place it deserves among our studies, and from advancing, as theory and practice, in the ways open to it.