While most listeners appreciate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech for its message of hope and solidarity, John Adams, a visiting professor of rhetoric at Hamilton College, says he's struck by Mr. King's lavish use of metaphors -- unexpected words and ideas that create vivid images.
"The speech has more metaphors per square inch than any speech I've ever read or heard," said Adams. "I believe that the metaphors set the idea in motion that concepts that don't seemingly belong together can do wonderful things together, as Dr. King's metaphors do."
Adams said, "There is something wonderful and powerful and poetic and beautiful about bringing together that which is apparently different: black people and white people put together can spark the same qualities of meaning and possibility that metaphors spark."
As examples, Adams points out: "'Manacles of segregation'. 'Chains of discrimination'. People living on 'a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity.'" "Thus, the plethora of metaphors displays integration's potential to make something good out of breaking the barriers between categories as metaphor so clearly and beautifully does," Adams explains.
John Adams, Ph.D., specializes in the history and philosophy of rhetoric. He has written extensively on the intersection of rhetoric, religion, and education. He has published extensively including a book, Delightful Conviction: Jonathan Edwards and the Rhetoric of Conversion, co-authored with Stephen Yarbrough, that received the Eastern Communication Association's Everett Lee Hunt Award. Adams teaches courses in speechwriting, rhetorical criticism, history of rhetoric, advanced public speaking, history of American public address, and rhetoric and philosophy.
