Thursday, January 19, 2012

(PL) Another word for nonmetaphorical or literal emotion

The simple phrase I couldn't recall yesterday, describing a category of emotions many theorists find mostly absent in our experience of music (and the arts generally) is "everyday, garden-variety emotions."  There, I feel better now.

1 comment:

  1. Just what we were lacking -- a metaphor for the non-metaphorical!

    I wonder, though, whether we actually have any direct, literal way of speaking about our emotions. 'Fear' is pretty straightforward, I guess, but since emotions are almost reductively subjective states without one-to-one cognitive analogues, it's always a struggle to express them precisely. The locution must aim to generate recognition of a similar emotive state in the hearer, without being able to appeal directly to a shared, objective referent.

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