Conceptual metaphors in Abu Qasem Echabi's The Will to Life

Since the publication of Lakoff and Turner’s seminal book More Than Cool Reason (1989), several studies have been done on poetic metaphor in literature, as reflected in the works of  Jaberi et al. (2016), Al-Jumaili, (2020), Johansson (2016), Kravets et al. (2021), and Marugina et al. (2014), showing that conceptual metaphor is pervasive in literature. However, to the best of our knowledge, no single study has offered a systematic cognitive analysis of the poems written by the famous Tunisian romantic poet Ab? Q?sem Ech?b?. This study tried to fill this gap, at least partially. It provided a cognitive semantic analysis of Ech?b?’s poem The Will to Life, by using the CMT theoretical framework, as propounded by Lakoff and Johnson (1980) and Kövecses (2002, 2017). The study aimed at identifying the conceptual metaphors underlying Ech?b?’s The Will to Life. It used the methodological tools proposed by CMT, such as linguistic metaphor, conceptual metaphor, target domain (TD) and source domain (SD). Data analysis identified several conceptual metaphors in which abstract concepts, such as LIFE, HOPE, DIGNITY, BEAUTY, DREAM and FREEDOM were reified or personified. This study corroborated the CMT claim that humans- poets and non poets alike - “live by metaphors.”