The Aesthetic of Conceptual Metaphor in The Butterfly Effect by Maḥmūd Darwish

Conceptual metaphor is a modern method of expressing thoughts, and hidden and inner mental concepts whose appearance in literature is not possible except with a considerable effort. This method was first developed by two European authors named Laykov and Johnson. Conceptual metaphor emerges among peoplechr('39')s common speech mechanism. War, being driven and displacement are among complex and hidden concepts which can only be observed through epic poetry in literature. The modern epic phenomenon in the current era is noticed among Palestinian Resistance poets especially Mahmud Darwish. Although the words resonate with past Arab poets such as Antarah, Tarafa and others allowed them to portray battlefields and their events, Mahmud Darwish placed concept of war and fighting in the form of durable sonnets which we wonchr('39')t face with any difficulties in comprehending them and creating rhetoric frameworks. Mahmud Darwish, known as the Poet of Resistance and one of the romantic symbolist ones, has widely utilized conceptual metaphor besides rhetoric techniques and symbols in his poems. In this study, we tried to analyze conceptual metaphors reflecting poetchr('39')s inner thoughts and expressing events such as war, plundering and displacement in his country by using analytical-descriptive method. We found that concepts like movement, life and humanity are the most mental concepts in the poetchr('39')s works and can be consider as the criteria for evaluating conceptual metaphor. We concluded that the poet has made use of conceptual metaphors to depict the Palestinian Resistance and this method is a simple way to express the amount of his grief and painful memories.