Definition:
In a metaphor, the figure itself--that is, the image that embodies the tenor (the underlying idea of the metaphor). See also:
Etymology:
Coined by I.A. Richards in The Philosophy of Rhetoric (1936).Examples
- "By 'tenor,' [I.A. Richards] meant the purport or general drift of thought regarding the subject of a metaphor; by 'vehicle' the image which embodies the tenor. In these lines from R.S. Thomas's A Blackbird Singing, the tenor is the bird's song, its tune; the vehicle is the fine smelting image in the fifth and sixth lines:
It seems wrong that out of this bird,
("Tenor and Vehicle," J.A. Cuddon, A Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory, 3rd edition, Basil Blackwell, 1991)
Black, bold, a suggestion of dark
Places about it, there yet should come
Such rich music, as though the notes'
Ore were changed to a rare metal
At one touch of that bright bill. - In the first stanza of Abraham Cowley's poem “The Wish,” the tenor is the city and the vehicle is a beehive:
Well then! I now do plainly see
This busy world and I shall ne'er agree.
The very honey of all earthly joy
Does of all meats the soonest cloy;
And they, methinks, deserve my pity
Who for it can endure the stings,
The crowd and buzz and murmurings,
Of this great hive, the city. - In William Stafford's poem "Recoil," the first stanza is the vehicle and the second stanza is the tenor:
The bow bent remembers home long,
the years of its tree, the whine
of wind all night conditioning
it, and its answer--Twang!
"To the people here who would fret me down
their way and make me bend:
By remembering hard I could startle for home
and be myself again."
Pronunciation: VEE-i-kul
