Yusef Komunyakaa: Questioning traditional metaphors of light and darkness

The theory of language promoted by cognitive linguistics points to metaphor as the crucial element of language and thought: a mode of thinking which determines our perception of reality. Stressing the importance of metaphor in our everyday life, George Lakoff, Mark Johnson, and Mark Turner state that the nature of poetic metaphors is the same as the nature of conventional metaphors which appear in standard language. Creating poetic metaphors, poets simply explore conventional metaphors, using four major strategies: expanding, elaborating, composing, and questioning. Focusing on questioning as the main strategy through which American multicultural literatures can undermine basic Western concepts of the English language, this study examines the ways in which Yusef Komunyakaa questions conventional metaphors of light and darkness in his poetry. Chapter One of this thesis situates the cognitive linguistics\u27 theory of metaphor in the context of African American literary criticism, especially the theory of double-voice. Chapter Two investigates Komunyakaa\u27s treatment of conventional metaphors of outer and inner sight, directly related to the concepts of light and darkness, in Neon Vernacular, and emphasizes the importance of the imagery of seeing in Komunyakaa\u27s definition of power relations in the contemporary world. Chapter Three focuses directly on metaphors of light and darkness in Neon Vernacular: Komunyakaa\u27s attempts to reverse the traditional definitions through criticism of light, as well as his use of the imagery of union between light and darkness as a metaphor of the African-American double-consciousness. Chapter Four analyzes Komunyakaa\u27s use of metaphors of light and darkness in Dien Cai Dau to describe an extreme situation of the Vietnam war, and define the identity of the American nation in liminal circumstances. The final part of this thesis concludes that Komunyakaa\u27s central imagery of light and darkness in union might be treated as a metaphor of the underlining feature of Komunyakaa\u27s work: merging of Western and African traditions