Abstract Cognitive Poetics concerns itself with numerous issues, most notably studying metaphor in literary texts and developing a cognitive theory about poetic metaphors. Building on the Conceptual Metaphor Theory introduced by Lakoff and Johnson (1891) and Lakoff and Turner’s model of analyzing poetic metaphors (1898), the main purpose of this paper is specifying and analyzing the conceptual metaphors of Time in Shakespeare’s sonnet 18 and interpreting those poetic metaphors as the extensions of conventional metaphors. As a shining star in the sky of English sonneteers, William Shakespeare problematizes the concept of time in a large majority of his sonnets. As such, it turns out that the concept of time in this sonnet is not rooted in the temporality of life sequences. Building on the generic level metaphors of EVENTS ARE ACTION and STATES ARE LOCATIONS, the most pervasive metaphors on specific level, among those are three metaphors introduced by the researchers, serve to conceptualize Time as generally possessing a transforming power and acting as the agent of metamorphosis in life by causing decay, senility, depredation and suchlike.

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