What is a love-as-insanity metaphor?

What is a love-as-insanity metaphor?

Definition
	A conventional metaphor in which love is represented as mental illness, such that
	the person causing the insanity represents the person with whom one is in love, the insane person represents the person in love, and the insane behavior represents the behavior of the person in love.

Examples
	Here are some examples in English:
	I'm crazy about her. She drives me out of my mind. He constantly raves about her. I'm just wild about Harry.

Generic
	A love-as-insanity metaphor is a kind of
	What is a metaphor for love?

Sources
	Lakoff, G. and Johnson 1980, Kovecses 1986

Context for this page:

Concept module: love-as-insanity metaphor
In modular book: Metaphors in English, by Eugene E. Loos (general editor), Susan Anderson (editor), Dwight H. Day, Jr. (editor), Paul C. Jordan (editor), and J. Douglas Wingate (editor)
In bookshelf: Lexicon

This page is an extract from the LinguaLinks Library, Version 4.0, published on CD-ROM by SIL International, 1999. [Ordering information.]

Page content last modified: 18 September 1998

© 1999 SIL International