Abstract

This thesis braids knowledge across different disciplines into an argument for learning and teaching through play, via metaphor and memoir. It examines the memoir of the classically trained pianist Jeremy Denk, Every Good Boy Does Fine: A Love Story, in Music Lessons, as both a pedagogical case study and a literary narrative, with particular attention given to the role of metaphor as a tool for ludic learning and communication. My reading shows that it is play, and especially the playful use of deliberate metaphors, that unlocks Denk’s most effective, meaningful performances as both musician and writer. Metaphor, I argue, can act as the cognitive gateway into imaginative play, allowing for learning, creation, and communication, even in a multimodal context. Furthermore, Denk’s use of deliberate metaphor in piano playing and literary writing suggests that metaphor can function as both intra-communication (i.e., within oneself) and inter-communication (between two or more people); this is an extension of Gerard J. Steen’s “new and improved” contemporary theory of metaphor, which proposes adding communication as a third dimension to George Lakoff’s two-dimensional thought-language framework. Then, in the last section of the thesis, I dive into my own act of memoir- and metaphor-driven playful learning. I consider my budding ideas on a ludic literary pedagogy with support from the current scholarship, focusing on three aspects: inclusivity, literary criticism as a ludic practice, and play-based classroom activities (inspired by Denk).