On Metaphor

peaseblossom recently got me thinking about William Butler Yeats for Tantaene Animis Caelestibus Irae. This line of thought has brought me to Yeats taking down a lot of directions and instructions from angelic visitors. But these angelic visitors came in the end to tell him that what they had actually given him were metaphors for poetry.

This, for some reason, led me to think about the games I run and the worlds that I construct for these games. Now some games are heavy metaphors, others are more textured. And I think this is a good thing, but frankly I think its one of the areas of the hobby that whatever nascent body of theory we have has largely ignored. What good are these metaphors? I and others obviously enjoy them, but do we expect to get something out of it? Or is it just the easiest way to do this sort of creative enterprise?

Or maybe I should lay off the John Crowley.