Quick Take
- Narration: John Lescault’s precise, resonant delivery suits a book built from centuries of eloquent quotation. He reads the anthology passages with genuine relish, making this an unusually pleasurable listening experience.
- Themes: Figurative language and its mechanisms, classical rhetoric, the craft of comparison
- Mood: Learned and pleasurable, the feeling of a well-stocked library on a quiet afternoon
- Verdict: A deeply satisfying anthology for writers and readers who care about how language achieves its effects, though it is more collection than instruction manual.
I have a particular weakness for books that make close reading feel like a sport. Ward Farnsworth’s series of rhetorical studies occupies a strange and delightful niche: they are reference works that read like arguments, anthologies that function as tutorials, collections of quotations that are also analyses of why those quotations work. I came to Farnsworth’s Classical English Metaphor on a quiet Saturday morning with a pot of coffee and no deadline, which is exactly the right way to approach it. John Lescault reads nearly nine hours of the English language at its most figurative, and the experience is something like sitting inside a very well-curated museum where every exhibit comes with an explanation of why it is beautiful.
Farnsworth teaches law at the University of Texas and has built a secondary career as one of the most interesting writers about rhetoric currently working in English. His earlier books on classical English rhetoric and on the art of the sentence established a methodology: find the best examples of a technique from centuries of English prose and poetry, arrange them thematically, and explain what the writers are doing and why it works. Farnsworth’s Classical English Metaphor applies that method to figurative comparison specifically.
How the Anthology Is Organized
The book moves through metaphor by function rather than by form, which is the right organizational choice. Farnsworth does not simply sort examples into simile versus metaphor. He asks what different kinds of figurative comparison accomplish: when writers use it for caricature, when they use it to make abstract ideas visible, when they use it to simplify complexity, when they use it to generate surprise. Each section illuminates a different way the technique can serve a piece of writing.
Lescault reads the quotations themselves with the attention of a close reader, modulating his pace to signal when Farnsworth wants you to sit with a particular example before moving on to the analysis. The rhythm of quotation followed by commentary, repeated across several hundred examples, could become tedious in lesser hands. Lescault prevents that by treating each example as an event rather than an item in a list. One reviewer called this book excellent for anyone looking to improve “the efficiency and effectiveness of their speech and writing,” and another suggested it should be required reading at the high school and college level. The enthusiasm is understandable.
The Writers Farnsworth Draws From
The range of sources is genuinely impressive. Farnsworth draws from novelists, playwrights, philosophers, essayists, and orators across several centuries of English prose and poetry. You will encounter Johnson and Hazlitt alongside Twain and Chesterton, with classical references woven throughout. The selection is unapologetically canonical, which will suit some listeners perfectly and others less well. If you want examples drawn from contemporary writers or from traditions outside the British and American mainstream, this is not that book. But within the tradition it inhabits, Farnsworth is an expert curator.
What Farnsworth does especially well is explain the mechanics without reducing the magic. He can tell you that a particular metaphor works because it translates an abstract emotional state into something with weight and texture, and then he can show you six more examples of writers doing the same thing in different ways. By the end of a chapter, you understand not just that metaphor can accomplish something but specifically how it accomplishes it. That analytical precision is what elevates this above a mere quotation collection.
The Book’s Limitations as a Writing Manual
Where Farnsworth’s Classical English Metaphor is weaker is in its prescriptive guidance. It is primarily a descriptive and analytical work. It shows you how the best writers have used metaphor; it does not tell you, in structured terms, how to develop that capacity in your own writing. There are no exercises. The commentary is analytical rather than instructional. Writers looking for a workshop-style guide to writing better metaphors should pair this with something more directed. Read here to understand what excellence looks like, and look elsewhere to practice achieving it.
Who Should Listen, Who Should Skip
Farnsworth’s Classical English Metaphor is for writers, speakers, teachers of rhetoric, and anyone who reads attentively and wants to understand why certain prose stops them in their tracks. It is also ideal for anyone who enjoys the experience of hearing beautiful language at length, since Lescault’s narration makes it genuinely pleasurable as pure listening. Listeners who want practical exercises or contemporary examples will find the book’s classical orientation and analytical stance something to work around rather than with.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Farnsworth’s Classical English Metaphor a standalone book or part of a series?
It is part of Farnsworth’s broader series of rhetorical studies, which includes volumes on classical English rhetoric, style, and argument. Each book is fully standalone, but readers who enjoy this one will find the others cover complementary territory.
Does the book include examples from non-English-language writers in translation?
The focus is on English-language prose and poetry. Farnsworth draws from British and American writers across several centuries, with classical allusions woven throughout. Writers working in other traditions are not a significant part of the collection.
Is this audiobook effective as a reference work, or is it better experienced straight through?
Lescault’s narration works well in a straight listen, but the book’s thematic organization also makes it useful to return to specific sections. Listeners interested in a particular function of metaphor can navigate to the relevant chapter. That said, the cumulative effect of listening through builds an understanding that selective listening cannot replicate.
How does this compare to Farnsworth’s other rhetoric books for writers?
Farnsworth’s Classical English Rhetoric covers a wider range of rhetorical figures, while this volume goes deep on figurative comparison specifically. For writers focused on improving their use of metaphor and analogy, this narrower focus is more useful. Those new to Farnsworth might start with the broader rhetoric volume first.
