While several views on metaphor theory were already developed in the past, the theory of the metaphor has expanded from literary science and poetics to various other scientific fields in the last century. Herein we briefly describe the main theories of the metaphor (substitution, comparison, interactive and cognitive metaphor theory) and go over the grammatical classification of metaphors. Neuroscience often presents its findings in a way that incorporates the framework of cognitive theories. Therefore, this paper also briefly outlines the main theories of figurative language processing and their neuroscientific basis (model of direct and indirect access, constraint-based approach, career of metaphor theory and the graded salience hypothesis). Since these theories are more focused on the processing of figurative language, a commentary is added on why and how are they also important for poetic metaphors. We have also provided critical commentary on the concepts of neuroscientific research and suggested some methodological improvements. To show the importance of this field, we have also presented the role of understanding metaphor processing in various diseases and the possibility of using the understanding of poetic metaphor as a diagnostic tool.
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