I was referred to this discussion by someone on a guitarnotes songwriting thread. interesting. for extended metaphors check out gogol's parodies of the homeric rambling metaphor in Dead Souls. The object of comparison takes on a life of its own beyond any direct intent to describe. As Nabokov commented, it's one thing to say the mist is like a veil, another to say the mist is like the veil of a bride who's very fat and her sister is even fatter. I may be in error, but prefer to think of simile as a particular subspecies of metaphor, a way in which metaphor is formally introduced, and metaphor as the right word when discussing comparisons in general, including similes. I like the way John Hiatte mixes a metaphor, as in "i ain't no porcupine, take off your kid gloves". Are porcupines typically handled with kid gloves? a complex metaphor, I think, is a major central comparison which is sustained, as in a story line, but which lends itself to other particular points of comparison along the way, so that a pattern of likenesses is developed. And so then a metaphor might be structured in various ways. One old literary formula that has an enduring appeal is when A knows b, b knows C, and A recognizes C through oblivious little b, though b doesn't quite get it. It's sometimes a buddy-buddy appeal to one's audience. in van gogh's starry starry night, my pal Vincent and I see the coiling cosmic sky above the oblivious little sleeping town. But in the Mona Lisa, Leonardo plays the part of little b. We see her omnicient smile and recognise a higher plane of knowlege on her part, even though the way we see it is through the dutiful reportage of leo, who only understands the surface appearances. So the situation of a portrait itself takes on metaphorical implications.In the socratic dialogues, plato is dutiful journalistic b, while socrates seems wiser and less certain that rationality accounts for everything that matters. some thoughts. hi.