Analysis and Comparison of the Conceptual Metaphor of Death in the Poetry of Siavash Kasraei and Ahmad Shamlou Based on Johnson’s Image Schema Theory

Abstract

One of the prominent perspectives in cognitive linguistics research is the theory of conceptual metaphor. According to Lakoff and Johnson, metaphor is a cognitive instrument that operates not only in language but throughout our everyday life, thought, and action. From their viewpoint, the human conceptual system is fundamentally metaphorical in nature and is formed on the basis of concrete and embodied experiences of lived reality. The objective of the present article is to analyze and compare the cognitive foundations through which Siavash Kasraei and Ahmad Shamlou conceptualize the notion of death. Relying on Johnson’s image schema theory, the study attempts, through a conceptual-analytical approach, to demonstrate what kind of image of death is presented to the reader by the allegories, symbols, similes, and metaphors employed by Kasraei and Shamlou. By examining the image schemas of death in the poetry of these two poets, it becomes evident that their metaphors are shaped by their personal experiences and individual cognitive systems. Through an analysis of the metaphorical mappings related to death in the poetry of Kasraei and Shamlou, the substructures involved in constructing metaphors for this abstract concept can be identified, revealing how the direction and course of life and thought of both poets are influenced by mappings derived from their ordinary and everyday experiences. These specific experiences have caused the cognitive infrastructures of the two poets, in their engagement with the abstract concept of death, to differ from one another. In Kasraei’s poetry, these mappings are predominantly represented as a confrontation between a weak object or being and a powerful object or being, against which the individual is unable to resist and therefore perceives no option but submission. Consequently, the dominant schema in Kasraei’s poetry, owing to the poet’s fear of the phenomenon of death, is a force schema. In contrast, in Shamlou’s poetry, due to his lack of fear or dread of death, this abstract concept is in most cases depicted as the companionship of two friends moving along a path that leads to eternity; accordingly, the dominant schema of Shamlou’s metaphor of death is a motion schema. Collectively, these mappings reflect the poets’ overall attitudes toward the issue of death.