Cicero’s Metaphor Hypotheses Revisited: An Inter-disciplinary Approach to the Aesthetic Appeal of Novel Metaphors

Metaphor permeates almost everywhere, and novel metaphors in particular are supposed to be more aesthetically appealing. Given the lack of a systematic research on the aesthetics of linguistic forms, this paper aims at investigating the factors contributing to novel metaphors’ aesthetic appeal. This study takes as a point of departure the great Roman rhetorician Marcus Tullius Cicero’s four hypotheses about the contributing factors to metaphor’s aesthetic appeal. These hypotheses prove to be reasonable based on our wide-ranging study on the relevant researches of inter-disciplinary interests in such fields as linguistics, psychology, neurology and aesthetics. Vivid images, pleasure in comprehension and meaning inexhaustibility are found to be the three potential contributing factors. Presumably, this inter-disciplinary endeavor will shed light on our investigation into the aesthetics of novel metaphors.