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p Let us start our consideration of creative techniques with analogy which is employed in different forms in literature and fine arts (its varieties are personification, comparison, and allegory). As shown in Chapter II, analogy is used in the sciences not only to illustrate unusual phenomena and complicated ideas but also to design theoretical models, while in psychology the very concept of analogy has often been employed as a principle which is presumed to explain the origin of new images and ideas.

p Let’ us recall that one of the most consistent adherents of explaining the phantasy phenomena by analogy, H.G. Barnett, was led to the conclusion that in making analogies "we are constantly equating the data of our experience" and "ignore the innumerable variations among them [objects—Ed.] and disregard the quantitative and qualitative changes" (115, 191). Barnett may seem to approach the idea of anaxiomatization very closely. Indeed, the process he describes of ignoring variations and numerous changes amounts to their devaluation, thanks to which similarity may be established between apparently different phenomena. However, Barnett fails to draw this conclusion.

p It is, however, the most striking feature of the creative approach that similarity is detected in those cases when it is very much camouflaged and an analogy is made between apparently different phenomena and objects. Thus Newton noted an analogy between the fall of an apple and the motion of the planets by virtue of his phantasy. To perceive this ^analogy, a tremendous number of features that create the impression that a falling apple and celestial bodies on their way through space have nothing in common had to be rejected or devalued. Consequently, valuable and scientifically significant analogies appear as a result of the anaxiomatization of unimportant, accidental features of the objects to be compared. Some important features can, however, also be subjected to anaxiomatization; this results in so-called non-rigorous and incomplete analogies. In scientific thinking such analogies are characteristic logical fallacies (to be discussed below). On the other hand, incomplete analogies (in which the compared objects have more different features than similar ones; moreover, while similar features may be insignificant), often act as very widespread artistic techniques of comparison and trope.

p An artistic (literary) comparison is usually defined as the identification of one object with another; psychologically, it is 148 important to note that, as a rule, the number of common features of objects between which analogy is drawn is severely limited. Thus in describing a beautiful girl in his Hebrew Melodies Byron uses several comparisons and allegoric expressions with different objects, each depicting just one feature in the appearance of the fair lady:

She walks in Beauty, like the night
of cloudless climes and starry skies;
and all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes...
One shade the more-, one ray the less
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress...
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent...

We can thus see that comparison by analogy is achieved by anaxiomatizing most of the features whereby the objects of comparison differ. The stability of many comparisons and their charm are obviously attributable to the other mechanism of phantasy, hyperaxiomatization.

p Another variety of analogy employed in fiction is a group of figures of speech denoted as tropes, or words and expressions used figuratively. They include metaphor, metonymy, antonomasia, synecdoche, and personification.

p A metaphor is a figurative use of words derived from some similarity (the heart of the matter, the murmur of the sea). "In the process of creation, the metaphor brings together phenomena which have no causal nor, apparently, any, even remote, connection," wrote B. Meilakh, a Soviet literary critic and specialist on Pushkin (36, 96). Indeed, the formation of a metaphor involves, as a rule, the identification of insignificant similarities, while the prevailing dissimilarities are ignored. This is probably what Stevens has in mind when he says that "resemblance in metaphor is an activity of imagination" (255, 73).

p In using metonymy we neglect differences between words in their direct sense and significance when we say, for instance, "crowned with laurels" implying "the victor”.

p In antonomasia the difference between the generic and the species notion is neglected; thus Xanthippa, a proper name, stands for "a nagging wife"; an opposite case of replacement is the use of the common noun "the Philosopher" in mediaeval literature to denote Aristotle.

p Synecdoche is replacement of a word which’ denotes the whole by one which denotes a part and conversely (for instance, 149 hearth meaning family life or home). In all cases of synecdoche the difference between the whole and the part is neglected.

p In some literary genres, such as fables, personification is a widely used figure whereby inanimate objects are given the attributes of living beings such as sentiments, desires, the faculty of speech. An important prerequisite for personification is, obviously, the neglect of the difference between animate and inanimate objects.

p Consequently, for all their variety, these kinds of tropes have the same psychological trait, namely that some real features, relations or differences are neglected, or devalued. In other words, psychologically tropes result from the anaxiomatization of some features (qualities or relations of objects) which culminates in identification, a kind of equalising, of different substances such as part and whole, words of widely differing meanings, animate and inanimate objects, etc.

p In the process of phantasy real sizes and proportions may also be devalued, which results, in literature and the arts, in the well-known phenomenon of hyperbole, or exaggeration, or, conversely, minimization of the size and other characteristics of objects or their parts. Here, anaxiomatization may be applied to real quantitative characteristics; thus in mythology and folklore of some peoples deities may have many arms, legs or breasts. Neglect of realistic quantitative features is also characteristic of modern literature and art.  [149•* 

p Recognizing anaxiomatization as the psychological mechanism of tropes, we may also expect hyperaxiomatization effects, since the two mechanisms are complementary.

p Studies of literature confirm that tropes are, as a rule, very stable and are used by many generations almost intact, especially in folklore. Gusev, a Soviet folklore researcher, has emphasized that "it is its traditional nature, stability, and repetition of elements that make folklore uniquely attractive and give aesthetic satisfaction to both the performers and audience" (20, 227). Folklore methods are, strange as it may seem, employed in today’s fiction. Thus Charles Paul Mauron, the founder of “ psychocriticism” has analyzed the texts of many French authors and detected so-called obsessive metaphors, individually characteristic of each of them (212,9).

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p Stability and repetition of way of performing an activity can be explained either by the uniqueness of the given method (as a result of the lack of equally efficient or better methods) or by preferences given to it. The first reason does not seem plausible for tropes which are generated, as we have seen, when there is the slightest similarity between the objects; this would make several more or less equivalent versions possible. However, if uniqueness is not the reason, then we can only assume that its stability is attributable to the preference given to it, which, in the framework of our theory, is dictated by enhanced evaluation.

Specific creative methods such as analogy and tropes can thus be seen as psychologically related to the anaxiomatization and hyperaxiomatization mechanisms. Let us now look at symbolism, a nioYe involved artistic device.