How can we truly know anything? In Poetic Diction, Owen Barfield argues that meaning is not static. When a logician attempts to fix the meaning of a term, it is inevitably reduced.
Try to define the word “home,” and you are left with something that is no longer much of a home. Try to define your spouse, and before long, you no longer have a spouse.
The meaning of “home” is revealed only to the one who dwells in it poetically. The meaning of “spouse” is revealed only to the one who dwells with them poetically.
According to Barfield, meaning emerges when the poet — maker in Greek — through inspiration, stumbles upon a fresh metaphor that stirs and shifts human consciousness.
“The poet’s relation to terms is that of a maker.” — Poetic Diction
In other words, unless I look at my spouse and allow a fresh metaphor to strike me unexpectedly, I reduce her to less than she is. But if I find the metaphor — or rather, if the metaphor finds me — the meaning will be revealed as a felt change of consciousness.
Modern consciousness recognizes only static meaning because it is bound to a particular lens — the lens of non-participation. That is why the modern world has so little meaning: such a view is inherently reductive.
It assumes that meaning can be grasped by definition, captured within an affixed description, as though it existed independently of the one who perceives it.
But there is no such thing as fixed, static meaning. The Logos of a thing is revealed only in between — in the living relation between myself and the thing. Meaning arises as I participate in it — through inspired metaphor.
The word “meaning” itself has a curious etymology. It comes from the Old English mǣnan, which means “to intend” or “to signify.” Surprisingly, the noun mean (as in Golden Mean) comes from a related Old English term “gemǣne.” Both mǣnan and gemǣne trace back to one common Proto-Indo-European root: mei- / moi-, which means to bind, unite, exchange, have in common.
In other words, meaning arises within a certain means — within a medium, in the shared space, in-between. Signification is revealed only through participation.
Barfield quotes Aristotle:
“The making of metaphors is by far the most important; since this alone does not involve borrowing from somebody else and is [therefore] a mark of genius; for to make a good metaphor is to contemplate likeness.” — Poetic Diction
A good metaphor is inspiration itself — it comes directly from the Spirit revealing the Logos. True metaphor doesn’t borrow anything from anyone; through imagination it ascends directly to God and is granted the gift of Mercurial speech.
Then, it strikes us with a magical wand of sound and shifts our consciousness to contemplate True Likeness. At that point, we no longer need definitions — we know.
