Wege und Abwege. Zu den Metaphern in der ramessidischen Weisheitsliteratur

This study analyses a series of New Kingdom wisdom texts in order to outline the rhetorical power of spatial metaphors, particularly metaphors of path. Firstly we differentiate those metaphors that explicitly mention a path from those that refer in a more implicit manner to some kind of path and its concomitant features. What we find is that path-based metaphors (particularly implicit ones) become more numerous as the rhetorical weight of the text increases - when, in other words, the more enumerative wisdom text genre takes on characteristics of the exhortations of scribal school texts. Additionally, the multidimensional methodology allows one to note connections between metaphors that occur within a single text, as well as to trace similar features in texts of the same genre and of different genres.