Blog Post #4

In Chapter 5 of “Rhetoric, poetics, and poetry” by Johnathan Culler, Culler describes the connection between Rhetoric, poetics, and poetry. He describes the different types of rhetorical figures throughout the chapter. One example he used was metaphor. Metaphor is used widely to give the reader a visual of the text. Visual learning can help many readers understand a text faster than other methods. It creates creativity in one’s mind. Metaphor was used in the poem “The Sea is History” by Derek Walcott, “and the furred caterpillars of judges examining each case closely.” I see comparison in this metaphor because of the word judge Walcott used. I felt like Walcott was comparing something big and important to something small as a caterpillar which is also important. This metaphor was inspiring because even if you may feel low and smaller than someone or something just know that you are still important to everyone. This helps shape the meaning of the poem because already Walcott used metaphor multiple times in the poem however, I felt like “and the furred caterpillars of judges examining each case closely” was a deep metaphor. It gave a meaning to the poem which I found interesting.