Re: Is this a metaphor?

Whatever the context for 'it', as soon as you say 'seemed', it won't be a metaphor that follows.

hey julielai,

I don't think I worded my post correctly.

"It seemed a sheet of sun,"

is the sentence and the "It" in the sentence refers to a big and very bright explosion.

o ok....thanks davkett.

sorry for the consecutive posts.....but would the sentence be a simile in that case?

I suggest you read the past posts on the subject. It has been discusssed at great lengths:

I assume you're asking about the word "sheet".

Yes, I'd say that's a metaphor. We certainly don't speak literally of "sheets of sun". Normally we need something more substantial than light to form sheets.

Also, the answer to your question depends on what type of metaphor you're asking about. To some people all language is metaphor. On that end of the spectrum a very

Yes; the sun is quite small, in relation to the entire visual field; you can obscure it with your thumb.

The thought of a sudden "sheet" across the sky, like a huge sheet of tin foil, with the brightness of the sun, is quite impressive.

MrP

Well, if you look directly at the unfiltered sun, I think it has the reputation of seemingly, if not actually, filling (covering as with a white sheet) your entire field of vision with pure light... while burning a big hole in your retina.

I suppose what is unusual here, and makes for more complication (and interest) is that normally when you say something seems [like] something else, it'

If we just concentrate on the traditional terminology for "figures of speech" or "figurative language", then yes, the entire statement "X seems Y", "X is like Y", "X seems to be Y" is a simile. Almost all similes of any interest, however, are figurative, and thus contain metaphoric language somewhere within them. I wonder, in fact, whether a literal statement using the "X is like Y" formula is e

CalifJim It seems to me that the mere formula without an imbedded metaphor does not deserve to be called a simile.

Agreed. And those examples are mere nothings as figures of speech. It's this kind of intimate relation (that you are describing between simile and metaphor) that usually causes much confusion, don't you think? And yet the 'nitty-grit