Analysing Metaphor in Religious Discourse in Literature

Abstract

Religious language is everywhere, “embedded in unexpected places like advertising, politics, news media, popular culture and even healthcare, to name a few” (Hobbs, 2021, p. 2). Belief construction and reconstruction also underpins much literary endeavour. However, consideration of the presence of religious language in literary texts is missing from Hobbs’ (2021) otherwise comprehensive coverage of the nature and functions of religious language across religious and non-religious text types and discourse situations. This chapter aims to redress this critical lacuna by sketching the ways in which metaphor and its analysis can be used to both identify and explicate the religious discourse underpinning literary texts. As Dorst notes, “[m]etaphor and religion go hand in hand, given the fact that our religious and spiritual experiences are highly personal, emotional, and abstract” (2021, p. 251). As a by-product, this chapter hopes to illustrate that the presence of explicitly religious language should not be a prerequisite for work in this area, particularly because, as van Noppen asserts, “almost any word, phrase, or sentence may take on ‘religious’ meaning when set in a ‘religious’ situation” (1981, p. 5).