Edward Balcerzan
Metaphor and Interpretation
Literary Studies in Poland 20, 69-87
Metaphor and Interpretation
Interpretation can be viewed as a reaction to the m etaphorical nature o f poetic idiom. M etap h o r and interp retatio n are two term s referring to one and the sam e co m m unication process, indicating one possible variant o f literary ingenuity (m etaphor) and one possible kind o f reading (interpretation). O bserve th at rou tin e literary activities, such as pu b lish ers’ advertising, book reviews, educational broadcasts etc., usually involve the n otion o f “great m e ta p h o r,” this as a rule implying m ore th an ju st style bu t som ething close to a self-contained com position exercise. Once you say ab o u t a literary work th at it is a great m etap h o r (of the crisis o f civilization, co rru p tio n o f power, or m an's confinem ent by nature), you direct a re a d e r’s atten tio n tow ards im plicit m eanings, m eanings which are accessible only in a “ro u n d a b o u t” way. M etap h o r itself then may look like the ultim ate goal o f the a r tis t’s w ork, and, on the o th er hand, the final purpose o f all interpretative endeavors seems to be the shedding o f all m etaphor. These cu sto m ary practices o f the literary world may ad m ittedly be sup ported with argum ents supplied by specialized doctrines. T he theory o f tropes and the theory o f m etap ho re have displayed num erous (m utual) dependences. M oreover, in their classifications they rely on the same criteria and they refer to the sam e ideas abo u t the natu re o f literary com m unication.
Once we have becom e aw are o f the ways in which m etaph or and in terp retatio n illum inate each other, we are boun d to notice that the dialogue between the literary com m unity and the reading public unfolds according to one o f two models. O n the one side a m odel o f literary com m unicatio n establishes itself which I propose
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to call the intralinguistic m odel; ju st why I p rop ose this designa tio n —which is a b orro w ing from the theory o f tra n s la tio n —will be explained further on in this essay. At this stage let me ju st point ou t th a t the intralinguistic concept enables us to use one and the sam e language when speaking on m etap ho r and interp retatio n alike, or, m ore broadly, on the art o f using words viewed from two angles sim ultaneously— in the a u th o r’s perspective and in the re ad er’s perspective. The other side o f the assum ed d ichotom y can be called the bilinguistic m odel o f literary com m unication. T he bilinguistic concept, ju st like the intralinguistic one, em braces as m uch the coding as the re-coding o f artistic com m unications, and thus also offers one language for reflections on m etap h o r and interp retatio n , which o f course m akes it the oppo site o f norm s and stan d ard s set by the
intralinguistic m odel.
The argum ent behind the definition o f the m etap h o r-in terp retatio n re la tio n sh ip —in the form er, intralinguistic, a p p ro a c h —goes m ore or less like this. M etap h o r begins where literalness ends. M uch the same is true o f interpretation . A m etaphorical expression is a coded text com m unicating a message which is hidden to the system o f m eanings established in a given langu age’s vocabulary. This view o f m etaph or is expounded by ancient au th o rities on rhetoric and by som e m odern theories alike. A ccording to Q u in tilia n ,1 a tro pe leads a reader to a word substituted with an o th er w ord; the form er word m ust be guessed, because the latter w ord, in the given syntactical context, is used in a surprising, “im p ro p e r,” m eaning. “I saw a m an, who used fire to glue copper to a m a n ” — this puzzling im age is studied by A risto tle2 (he m eans the m edical technique o f cupping), who concludes th a t m etap hors speak in riddles while riddles are well-con trived m etaphors. T w entieth-century theories (not all, though) also tend to explain m etap h o r as the- going beyond th e established platform o f literal ex p ressio n ; briefly, as “speaking o f X as if it was T.” 3
1 See H. L a u s b e r g , H andbuch d er literarisch en R h e to rik , M ü n ch en 1960. 2 A r i s t o t l e , R h etoric. S o m e tim e s tra n sla tio n s o f this m etap h or speak a b ou t b ro n ze and ab ou t fa sten in g b ro n ze to flesh or w eld in g b ro n ze to g eth er with flesh u sin g fire. T h e im age rem ain s the sa m e essen tia lly .
ł W. N o w o t t n y , “ M e ta p h o r ,” transl. by I. S ieradzki, P a m ię tn ik L ite r a c k i, 1971. fase. 4. p. 221.
A nna W ierzb ick a4 at first notices “elliptic m e ta p h o rs” in which “one o f tw o elem ents is not m entioned explicitly,” bu t she prom ptly notices th a t actually “all m etaph ors are by definition elliptic, for a m etap h o r which is com pletely explained away ca n n o t be called m etaphor at all.” A ccordingly, full or partial ellipticity tu rn s out to be one o f the universal properties o f m etaph or, in keeping with ancient canons o f rhetoric.
Now, w hat is in terp re tatio n ? It is a reaction to codes o f literary a r t; a tearing dow n o f m asks; an exposition o f subtextual com m un i cations. It is a solving o f riddles. A nalyzing in this perspective the very p ertin ent definition o f in terp retatio n as “a hypothetical hidden w hole,” 5 I w ould like to p u t em phasis on the w ord “h id d en .” An in terp re ter’s m ovem ents are as if anticipated in the scenario o f the m etaphor, with the ord er o f in terp retatio n ap paren tly a repeat o f the m etaphorical expression bu t in the reverse order. In terp retatio n can thus be said to be m etap h o r in reverse.
The intralinguistic aspect o f coding and re-coding literary co m m u ni cations is articulated m ost strongly in su bstitu tio n theory. S ub stitu tion (of one w ord for an o th er in a text) is the sim plest case o f intralinguistic tran slatio n . This tran slatio n is no t confined to substitution alone; it is a “re-p h rasin g ” o r “ in terp retatio n o f linguistic signs by m eans o f o ther signs from the sam e language,” 6 which m eans it is som etim es a p a rap h ra se and takes advantage o f all privileges o f parap h rase. S ubstitutio n is an ideal, then, in the sam e way as that often-cited adequacy or tru th o f tran slatio n from a foreign language. P arap h rase, in turn, is p a rt o f o ur real behavior as interpreters, m uch in the way those “b etra y als” (adaptions, sub stitu tio ns o f analogous words) are which a tran slato r con tinually finds him self forced to com m it in his work. It can therefore be said that in the intralinguistic m odel there a re —and determ ine one a n o th e r—other concepts o f tro p e and rules on how to unravel them (even though
4 A . W i e r z b i c k a , “ P o r ó w n a n ie — gradacja, m e ta fo r a ” (C o m p a riso n , G ra d a tio n , M eta p h o r), ibidem , p. 144f.
5 J. S ł a w i ń s k i , D zie ło . J ę z y k . T ra d ycja {T ex t. L angu age. T radition ), W arszaw a 1974, p. 165.
6 R. J a k o b s o n , “J ęzy k o w e a sp ek ty tłu m a c z e n ia ” (L in gu istic A sp e cts o f T r a n sla tio n ), transl. by Z. S ro czy ń sk a , [in:] P r z e k ła d a r ty s ty c z n y . O sz tu c e tłu m aczen ia, W rocław 1975. p. 110.
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researchers have long used to draw a distinction between these two). W hat the m any different theories have in com m on is their persistent conviction th at to explore the n ature o f m etap h o r we have got to take into account (at least) two aspects o f its work. A single isolated word can n o t be a m e ta p h o r.7 There are m any term s pointing at this dual or tw o-faced n atu re o f m etaphor in various ways. N otions usually go in pairs. T en o r and vehicle, external and internal form , focus and fram e, them a and phora, the com pared and the com paring elem ents.8 But stud en ts o f the problem disagree as to where, in which situations, this duality should be sought above all. We can choose either vertical links (between what is uttered explicitly and what is guessed) or ho rizo n tal links (between two things both o f which are uttered, or else betw een two implicit messages organized beneath the surface o f the given text). There is no agreem ent on the sem iotic aspect o f the sign which becom es a m etap h o r as its duality takes shape. M etap h o r is generally taken to be a sem antic phenom enon, and so the “d u a lity ” o f a trope is a sem antic kind o f duality.9 At the same time, however, m etap ho r is referred to the sign's syntactical or pragm atic aspects. Such a reo rien tation o f the research perspective is som etim es viewed as a source o f new knowledge ab o u t tropes. “ M e ta p h o r” also has a co n n o tatio n pertainin g to “pragm atics” ra th e r than “sem antics,” and it is p ro b ab ly this co n n o ta tion which deserves closest atten tio n , says B lack .10 Research going in the pragm atic d ire c tio n 11 finds itself facin g—once ag ain —the dual nature o f m etaphor. M etap h o r's effect on the reader is som etim es described as a “dual vision” o f the object it refers to. or, even
7 T h is view is p ro p o u n d e d by M . I. L e k o m t s e v a , “ L in gvistich esk i aspekt m etafory i struktura se m a n tic h e sk o g o k o m p o n en ta ," [in:] T ek st. J ę z y k . P o e ty k a , ed. by M. R. M a y en o w a . W roclaw 1978, p. 154.
8 See M. R. M a y e n o w a . P o e ty k a te o r e ty c z n a ( The T h eo retica l P o e tic s), W roclaw 1979, pp. 216 — 2 50; M. P o l a k o v . V oprosy p o e tik i i k h u d o zh estven n o i se m a n tik i. M o sk v a 1978, pp. 1 3 6 - 1 5 4 .
g Y. T. C h e r k a s o v a , “ P rób a lin gw istyczn ej interpretacji tropów " (A T en ta tiv e L in gu istic in terp reta tio n o f T r o p e s), transl. by S. A m sterd a m sk i. P am iętn ik L ite ra c k i. 1971, fasc. 3. p. 268. refers to V. V in o g ra d o v and J. K u ry lo w icz to prop her argum ent.
10 M . B l a c k , M o d e ls a n d M e ta p h o rs, Ithaca, N . Y .. 1962 (C hapter “ M etap h or"). 11 J. J a p o l a . “ M eta fo ra : p o sz u k iw a n ie n o w e g o aspektu" (M etaph or: L o o k in g for a N e w A sp e ct). S tu d ia S e m a n ty c zn e , vol. 8. 1978, p. 196.
m ore broadly, as “a doubling o f the w o rld .” 12 Eventually, the idea about m e ta p h o r’s essentially dual nature, voiced as it is so frequently and in m any different references, neutralizes differences between various critical approaches to the subject.
The variety o f m eanings o f m etap h o r's “d u ality ” is m irrored by the variety o f interpretative directives which are to open the reader's eyes to a “dual vision” o f the text. Endless series o f d ich o to mies p u rp o rtin g to encom pass the entire work call on the reader to use his im agination to rip open the verbal fabric in o rd er to pit its two aspects against each o th er; viewed from this angle, the history o f literary consciousness can be described as the history o f continually repeated endeavors to dissect the object o f in te rp re ta tio n —substance versus form , fiction versus tru th , n arrativ e versus plot, rhythm versus im a g e ... But the energies dissecting the verbal fabric tend to exhaust them selves gradually, while the distinctions turn out to be unclear or unw anted. As unclear, they becom e constellations o f specific notions; as unw anted, they give way to new dualism s such as the subject o f creative action and the virtual recipient, language and m etalanguage, tim e and space, coherence and incoherence, im m anent and form ulated poetics, m etap h o r and m etonym y. This is the gram m ar o f interpretatio n. It does not explain itself autom atically, for it is being used by various m utually opposed cultural axiologies which require such and no other dissection o f the text, and they do have their reasons for th at, yet none o f th a t invalidates anyone's right to study these processes in the gram m atical aspect alone. Once again, then, it has to be noted that the g ram m ar o f m etap h o r is m irrored in the g ram m ar o f interp retatio n in the reverse order.
Let us look at yet an o th er feature o f the trope we are interested in. R esearchers who view tropes either as subjective evaluations o f the object, or as new p attern s o f the w o rd 's sem antic substance, o r as new configurations o f elem entary sem antic u n its .12 unfold in various
12 T h is efleet o f "dual vision " is a specific featu re o f m etap h or, acco rd in g to S. U llm a n n ; q u o ted after N o w o t t n y . op. e it.. p. 225. For " d o u b lin g the w orld" in m eta p h o r see Y. L e v in . S tru k tu ra ru ssk o i m e tq fo r y . Tartu 1965. p. 293.
^ T h e subjeetive v iew o f the d escrib ed ob ject is b ein g given m uch p rom inence in his d iscu ssio n o f m eta p h o r by L. I. T i m o f e i e v , O sn o v v te o rii litera titry . M o sk v a 1963, p. 203f. C h. P e r e l m a n says: “ each p h ore |. . . ] im parts a different structure to the them e, e x p o sin g so m e o f its a sp ec ts and leavin g other o n es in
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ways w hat is basically always th e same idea ab o u t m e tap h o r being axiologically oriented tow ards being a trick. M etap h o r is the trick o f reshuffling the sign’s hierarchy; it is som ething like a subversive action against custom ary m odes o f utterance. M etap h o r abolishes the w o rd ’s com m only accepted hierarchical sem antic stru ctu re and p o stulates a desire to set up a new p attern o f the w o rd ’s internal relation ships (even if only for a single utterance). In this aspect, too, m etap h o r appears o u t to be a negative o f the m odel o f interpretative ventures. U nlike a scholarly description, unlike literary analysis, in terpretation is oriented tow ards the te x t’s intrinsic hierarchy. It fulfils its jo b only when it presents the hypothesis a b o u t the text in its entirety as a hypothesis ab o u t relation ships between m ost im p o rtan t elem ents which govern this entirety as d istinct from second-rate or u n im p o rtan t elem ents. An interpreter wants to kn ow w hat is governed by w hat in a w o rk ’s com position, w hat is the su b o rd in atin g and what the su b ordinated energy, and which co m p o n en ts play a m arginal p art in the quest for the w o rk ’s all-em bracing sense.
F or a third time, I find m yself forced to say at this place th at in terp retatio n situates a w ork within the p attern o f the m etap h o r (regardless o f w hether it involves the lavish use o f o rn am ental elem ents or represents an extrem ely ascetic style devoid o f any tropes at all).
The three distinctive features o f m etap h o r I have po inted out h ere—ellipticity, duality and h iera rch y —are n o t m utually exclusive n or do they invalidate one anoth er. M etap h o r as a riddle organizes a “dual vision” o f the poetic reality; in rifting the vision it ends up revising o ur images as they are established in words. This sequence o f im plications can be regarded as self-consistent if we agree th a t it is based upon a certain organizing idea, nam ely th a t ab o u t the translata- bility o f m etaphors, and, at the sam e time, the idea ab o u t in terp re ta tion as intralinguistic translation .
The intralinguistic m odel o f literary com m u nicatio n, then, is based upon the follow ing assum ptio ns:
T here is only one sem antic system within any given verbal culture
the sh a d o w ” (“ A n a lo g ie et m éta p h o re en scien ce, p o é sie et p h ilo so p h ie .” R evu e
In tern ationale de P h ilo so p h ie, 1969, n o . 87). L e k o m t s e v a (op. c it., p. 157) stu d ies
and only one set o f norm s o f interp retatio n o f linguistic utterances. A ccording to de S au ssu re,14 langue is a self-regulating entity, an institution we neither w ant n o r are able to overthrow , for it relies on trad itio n and so needs no ratio n al justification o f its arbitrariness, and an institution which is present virtually “ in every m ind ” where it decides th a t m an u n d erstan ds himself, u n d erstan d s others, and can be understo o d by others.
If de Saussure is right, then literary co m m u nicatio n am ounts either to actual degrad ation, th a t is, to an endorsem ent o f nonsem anti- city (in which case it will churn out nonsensical messages), or to ostensible d egrad ation (a m ock rebellion; a revolution which intends to su rren der to co u nter-revolution right from the beginning).
Intralinguistic m anipu lations go in one o f tw o directions, nam ely tow ards literalness or away from it. At the heart o f the m odel there is literalness; beyond its b ound aries there are gibberish, p aran oic speech and thus som ething which can be called non-speech, a d em on stration o f non-language. Two possibilities are faced th en : literal text and non-literal text, which can be “m oved b ac k ” to literal expressions which exist after their tran sfo rm atio n in it, text which can be “decom po sed ” into p rim ary n o n-m etaphorical expressions. T here is a third possibility, nam ely text which sheds its m etaphorical ch a racter once we recognize it as a fa b le ,15 but this is ju st a v ariant o f the same o rd e r o f things. S om ething which is n ot a m etap h o r (nor nonsense) can only be a m aterializatio n o f literalness set in rules governing fab les— ano ny m ous and ancient as speech itself. N o o ther param eters exist. T here are no o th er languages, there are ju st events o f the sam e language; intralinguistic tran slatio n either differentiates the oddity o f those events (in art) or restores their serrfantic identity (in interpre tation).
This system has been repeatedly criticized, and always for the sam e reason, nam ely for its to talita rian character, in defense o f the indiv id u al’s right to un ham pered self-realization. As a eule, however, m utually opposite concepts o f literary art (dem ands m ade by herm etic
14 See F. de S a u s s u r e , C o u rs de lin gu istiqu e g é n é ra le , P aris 1955.
15 See the very in terestin g essa y by T. D o b r z y ń s k a , “ M eta fo ra w b a śn i” (M eta p h o r in F ab le), [in:] S e m io ty k a i str u k tu ra tek stu , ed. by M . R. M a y en o w a , W roclaw 1973.
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lyrical poetry, pure poetry, irrational speech, surrealist productions, poetry as “language within language” etc.) stem m ing from splits taking place in different cu rren ts o f the interpretatio n school (from Russian form alism to certain ram ifications o f m odern structuralism ). The jo in t m utually contrasted presentation o f the two parallel currents o f intralinguistic thinking ado p ted in this essay validates their descrip tion as sem iotic ideology which is governed by the pragm atic criterion o f truth. H istory know s intentions and expectations, styles o f creation and styles o f reception geared to the intralinguistic natu re o f literary com m unicatio n and defining its own responsibilities within the bound aries o f intralingualism . This ideology—for it is no thing but an ideology—has no universal significance nor can it ever have that. It com es across facts which instantly suspend its pow ers between norm ative value and incoherence. When this ideology attem pts to save itself by defying the facts, it slips into norm ativism . When it does respect facts which go beyond it, this ideology becomes incoherent.
A. Normativism. T h at m etapho rs often resist the intralinguistic
system, th at som e o f them are insoluble or perfidiously tangled, has been know n ever since the system ’s inception. Also, ever since the system 's inception we have been in the face o f the poetic im agination's rebellious character. O lf theories o f tropes could afford to describe a deviation from intralinguistic rules ju st as a “ bad m e ta p h o r.” A ristotle thought “ K aliope's c ry ” was a bad m e ta p h o r.16 He said the point o f it all was poetry, and as poetry is sounds and the cry is a sound, the analogy does exist. However, the analogy is wrong, for it brings up a th ird -rate feature o f poetry (its accoustic aspect) thereby m aking it quite difficult to decipher the hidden word. Surely there is no point in w ondering what A ristotle would have to say in his Rhetoric abo u t an expression like “ this silken-voiced hymn above sugar-sweet cru elty .” T w entieth-century theories are pervaded by a hidden kind o f norm ativism , which is cam ouflaged either by their specific pick o f exam ples—in their telling avoidance o f any m ore involved configurations o f poetic lang uag e—or by attem p ts to d istin guish between objective and subjective approaches in research. The rule, “ I study texts as a researcher: I appraise them as a poetry fan.”
is actually a defensive kind o f phraseology, for a b u ffs feelings are in this case a straightforw ard result o f m ethodological calcula tions.
Says one researcher who writes as one. “ M etap h o r now adays spans so widely disparate m eanings th at a read er may be entirely unable to grasp those analogies. As K arol Irzykowski once put it. it looks as though au th o rs are keen on setting puzzles to their readers while keeping the clues w ithout which the puzzles can n o t be resolved for them selves.” |7
Analogies, puzzles, riddles, clues— all these term s, borrow ed as they are from the vocabulary o f intralinguistic theory, are represented in their purest form here.
But the sam e researcher speaking as a poetry fan says, “ I would like to see a kind o f poetry which is loyal tow ards the language, the m ost m agnificent instrum ent o f culture. Language, like all social phenom ena, is a system o f accepted, recognized and com m only held norm s and stand ards. [...] A nyone who ignores norm s and the indigenous status o f w ords unavoidably becom es isolated and solitary in his poetic end eav o u rs.”
The researcher as reader thus finds su p p o rt for his taste in the sam e, equally outspok en, intralinguistic literary axiology. It is a case o f one language, one status o f w ords, one universality o f requirem ents and norm s of social com m unication. A nything th a t slips the system ’s orderin g rules o f unity in diversity is wrong.
B. Incoherence. Intralin g u alism ’s incoherence becom es evident in
studies which, as an aside, m ention the possibility o f inexplicable m etaphors in a context o f the ad op ted theory. W hen Y uri Levin speaks o f “subjective m e ta p h o r,” which refers the reader to the given po et's own p ro d u ctio n s and the given ep o c h ’s own poetics ra th e r than to the system o f com m only accepted norm s, or when M arg arita L ekom tseva m entions “h alo s” o f m etaphorical expressions which
A. H u t n i k i e w i c z . P o r tr e ty i s z k ic e lite ra c k ie (L ite r a ry P o rtra its a n d E ssays), W arszaw a 1976. p. 248. A u th o r em p h a siz e s the p a ssa g e from the role o f expert to that o f am ateu r. "T his is u'here the role o f a m od erately o b je ctiv e h istorian o f literature en d s, b eca u se h isto ria n s m ust not d em a n d or a n ticip a te a n y th in g but on ly d escrib e and exp lain the p resent state o f thin gs. But d em and and a n tic ip a tio n are all right with ord in ary recip ien ts and am ateu rs o f art" (p. 252).
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them selves can co m m unicate things (things which can n o t be com m u ni cated in any o ther m an n er i8) — the intralinguistic m odel n o longer works. The system com es across alien phenom ena, udidentified semio- tic objects which, within the fram ew ork o f intralinguistic ideology, are “extra-system ic” and “illegitim ate.” The overcharge o f the concep tual system can be seen from w hat is called interaction theory o f tropes. It can w ork as the final w ord o f intralingualism an d , at the sam e time, as an in tro d u ctio n to bilingualism .
The bilinguistic m odel, a rival o f the above-discussed m odel o f literary com m unication, is also a p ro d u ct o f sem iotic ideology. This m eans the bilinguistic m odel, too, leads to ab u ses—not, as before, reductions, b u t attem p ts to proliferate art in “a b u n d a n ce,” which m ay not have been intended by the writer n o r desired by the recipient. The im plicit assu m ptio n o f this theory is th at a user o f a verbal sign is a one-language individual (within the given culture o f the given ethnic language) as long as he or she dispenses with literature. The m om ent literatu re enters his life— w hether as p ro d u c tio n or as co n su m p tio n —such an individual becom es “biling ual.” The distinction o f the Polish language into non-poetic and poetic languages creates a specific kind o f “bilingualism .” This does not rule out the possibility o f intralinguistic action, th a t is, the rew ording o f p oetry into non-p oetry or vice versa; sim ilarly, a bilingual person, i.e. one who know s tw o languages, can tran slate b oth ways. But such rew ordings tu rn o u t to be second-rate exercises, to o cum bersom e in som e cases or u n p rod uctiv e in others. Independence o f th oug ht is the goal in either system, and the b etter you get to know b o th the one and the o th er the m ore closely aw are do you becom e o f the basic differences between the tw o underlying ideologies. Bilingualism can be perfected by preventing interferences. If I w ant to think and speak in Czech as fluently as in Polish, I have on each occasion to be right in the centre o f the one or the other system. Sim ilarly, when I want to com prehend colloquial and poetic speech with equal clarity, I m ust co n stan tly be tuned to the specific prop erties o f each o f the two, th at is to say, I m ust constantly try no t so m uch to obliterate the differences betw een them b u t to b rin g them to daylight.
18 Y. L e v i n , R u ssk a ia m e ta fo ra : sin tez, se m a n tik a , tra n sfo rm a tsia , Tartu 1969, p. 301: L e k o m t s e v a . op. c it.. p. 161.
Poetic language is “ the second P olish lan g u ag e” in so far as fam iliarity with its non-poetic codes does not suffice to u n d erstan d poetry w ritten in Polish.
W hat does m etap h o r becom e in this m odel th en ? M etap h o r picks up where simile ends. Simile pertains to non-literary language, bu t in literature it becom es an elem entary particle o f a new literalness.
P o etry i s —yes — literal. A lth o u g h p o e tic la n g u a g e so m e tim e s is the o p p o site o f literalness, it co m m u n ic a te s real m essa g es, not illu sio n s or w h o -k n o w s-w h a ts; p o etry , th en , c o m m u n ic a te s tr u th s— literal o n e s. T h o se truths in true p oetry are d isco v e ries, the way truths are d isco v e red in scientific research, but they co n cern n o t so m uch general p h y sica l law s as in d iv id u a lized , varyin g, truths o f inner life [...] P o etry d isco v e rs and d iv u lg es p sy c h o lo g ic a l, a esth etic, m oral truths, [ ...] a b o v e all truths w hich ca n n o t be cla ssed with c a teg o ries k n ow n so fa r .19
“ M e ta p h o r” itself becom es problem atical as a term here. It is either a hom onym or an anachronism . Some au th o rs, including Y uri L otm an, im part to it a m eaning which goes beyond the scope o f m eaning o f tropes. In their argum ent, m etap h o r is one o f two basic d eterm inants o f poetic language; rhythm being the o ther one; with rh y th m determ ining the p aradigm atic, m etap h o r the syntagm atic, aspects, respectively, o f a literary utterance. It offers no ro om for any co u n tab le series o f structures o f articulatio n. In m odern lyrical poetry, in particu lar, “tw o w ords standing one by ano th er m ay co n stitu te a m e ta p h o r.” 20 O thers give up the term “m e ta p h o r” alto gether.21 Suppose in bilinguistic ideology m etap h o r is “m e ta p h o r” in q u o ta tio n m arks, d enotin g a certain process, a quest for an au to n o m o u s second language. “ M e ta p h o r” tries to fit itself to all possible m eanings o f an u tteran ce in non-poetic language which sounds the same. M etap h o r looks like nonsense. It resem bles a fable. It pretends to be simile. These are all m e ta p h o r’s po ten tials; m etaphor takes advantage o f their expressive energy but never identifies itself
19 J. P r z y b o ś , Z a p is k i b e z d a ty . S z k ic e i n o ta tk i (U n d a te d N o te s a n d E ssa ys), W arszaw a 1970.
20 Y . L o t m a n , S tru k tu ra kh u d o zh estven n o g o te k s ta , M o sk v a 1970, p. 116. 21 J. F a r y n o m o v es in the sam e d irectio n ; in his o p in io n , every in d ivid u al p o e tic la n g u a g e is a system w hich m o d e ls ou r v isio n o f the reality as th ou gh “ from n o th in g .” In such an ap p ro a ch , the ca teg o ries o f “m e ta p h o r ” or “trick ” lo se their sense. See F a r y n o ’s essa y s: “O języ k u p o e ty c k im ” (O n P o etic L an gu age),
P a m ię tn ik L ite r a c k i, 1972, fasc. 2; “ N e k o to r y ie v o p ro sy teorii p o e tic h e sk o g o y a z y k a ,”
80 E d w a rd B aleerzan
with them . Its m eaning unfolds am idst the new literalness o f poetic language.
The news ab o u t a m an who tried to fasten a piece o f copper to another m a n ’s body using fire for the p u rp o se — when it is considered as a m etap h o r in a bilingual system —does not have ju st one model fram ew ork. It has three hypothetical fram ew ork: 1) It is nonsense; nobody uses fire to attach m etal to flesh. 2) It is not nonsense, it is fable; in fables, flesh can be refractory, fire can exist in luquid form , and metal can have the properties o f fabric or paper. 3) It is not fable, it is a simile. The poet speaks o f gluing metal to flesh, but he actually m eans cupping.
R eception may grind to a halt at any point in that process. Each stop may m ake the recipient reject the m etaphor. (“Tuberculosis sclerotized his nerves,” said Stanisław G rochow iak, but A n to ni Sło nim ski protested, “T uberculosis never sclerotizes nerves.” —) But the containm ent o f m etap h o r within the boun daries o f nonsense does not have to induce anyone to reject it. N onsense can delight as a joke, as an exposure o f m indless colloquial habits etc. When m etaph or is contained within the b ou nd aries o f fable or simile, largely sim ilar alternatives emerge. Full reception occurs only in the fourth, at last, stage o f reasoning, when we tell ourvelves: this is neither simile n or fable nor nonsense, this is tru th . T he tru th o f a new', poetic, literalness.
The m essage studied here (involving m en, copper, fire) discloses the laws the a rtist’s im agination imposes upon the reality. It is a world o f men and things, o f things and elem ents tending tow ards one another, desirous o f unio n ; their union is supposed to save the characters involved in the dram a, but it turns out to violate the nature o f each o f them and to end up in cruelty. This explication is borne o u t by all the rejected hypotheses. By th at abo ut nonsense, because the w o rld ’s absurdity is being com m unicated. By th a t abo ut fable, because it speaks ab o u t trespassing upon nature. By that abo u t simile, because the implicit intentions o f covenant and salvation are guessed in it. The simile m ust be discovered, but it has eventually to be opposed (it is you who see cupping where I see a m an gluing a piece o f cop per on to flesh). The ultim ate end is not what is hidden.
— A. S ł o n i m s k i . Jedn a stro n a m edalu (O ne Eaee o f the Coin). W arszaw a 1971. p. 541.
but what is uttered. The literalness o f the second language (secondary literalness) is the true carrier o f poetic language (the te x t’s o rien tatio n to itself); in substitutio n theory, m etap h o r is a negation o f poetic ch aracter, for it favors som ething th at does not exist in the te x t’s substance. A cknow ledgm ent o f the new literalness m oreover implies ab an d o n m en t o f the “dual vision.” This one suprem e truth o f the poetic m essage is being seen clearly. A nd so, m e ta p h o r’s hierarchical ch aracter is also invalidated. T here are no secondary elem ents in it, as everything serves the p rojection o f the new language, and thus everything becom es necessarily creation (this is how P rzyboś in terp ret ed the m eaning o f m easterpiece).
In the bilingual perspective, poetic language is “language” in q u o ta tio n m arks. It is not a com plete system but a process tending to establish itself as a system. W hile the intralinguistic m odel favoured m etaph ors isolated from concrete com m unication situations, the bilingual m odel is doing the opposite th in g —it can check its own identifications only against concrete features o f literary messages, th at is, the auth o rs, the currents, the epoch. The greater the num ber o f v ariants o f a given m etap h o r the bilingual m odel knows, the m ore assured it is th at the process transform s itself into a system. This is tru e in p artic u la r when the sam e w ord is used alternately as the object o f m etap h o r and as the factor which im parts m etap h o ri cal m eaning to the object; when the repeated reversals o f the co m parison disarm th a t structure from inside: the com parison no longer refers to the co m m o n p laces23 o f non-poetic language, but it becom es m eaningful when cast against the b ack d ro p o f the p o e t’s own m ythology. As a result, the simile ceases to be “m erely a c o m p a riso n ,” and tu rn s out to be a w orn-dow n and discarded phrase.
H ere is an exam ple, the w ord “ro se ” in S tanisław G ro c h o w iak ’s “U nderessing to G o to B ed”,24
A czy ta róża M o że w nich Je pytam
[But is the ro se / P erhaps in them / I ask them ]
O n the role o f the “system o f a sso cia ted c o m m o n p la c e s” in the p rocess o f c o m p r e h e n d in g a m eta p h o r see B l a c k , op. c it.
- 4 S. G r o c h o w i a k , R ozh ieran ie do suit. W arszaw a 1959.
82 E d w a rd B aleerzan
This poem gives n o chance to divorce the m eanings o f “ro se” from its com m onplace d en o tatio n . The interpreter here m ust co n ten t him self with the o bservation th a t “ro se” is “a sign o f jo y o f life,” “a sym bol o f life.” 25 It is only in other poem s in the sam e collection th at m ore light is cast on the pecu liar m eanings o f the w ord “ro se.” Thus, the rose stands for the in terior o f the living body, a body turned inside out, pen etrated, slit up, and, in th at flagrant sham elessness o f biology, that interior appears to be the sam e for plants, beasts and m e n :
Jak bladzi ci lu d zie z p ierw szych p łócien Picassa D e lik a tn a r ó ż o w o ś ć k u rzeg o żo łą d k a
Jest to k w iat o d w ie c z n ie p o n ę tn y i tw ardy R ó ża
[H or wan th o se p e o p le in P ic a sso 's early c a n v a sse s / The faint pink o f the ch ick en sto m a ch / It is an ever allu rin g and to u g h flow er / T he rose]
In yet another poem there is a sim ilar image o f pinkness (always a m etonym y o f the rose) as transparency o f the b ody :
O grodnik tu r ó żo w y — przejrzysty jak pęcherz I w id ać ja k przez k rw io b ieg
W id n o mu p rzep ływ a N a leżn y ty lk o niebu S p rężon y g a z P o w ietrz e
[The gardener here is p in k — tran sp aren t like a bladder / A nd you ca n see his b lo o d system / B ein g pervaded / By c o m p ressed g a s / W h i c h the sky o n ly d ese rv es / Air]
In its sham elessness as an opened-up body, the rose is a frivolous flower, which is aggressive to w ard s dead bodies. “A fork w ithout you is an ugly extravagance o f m etal / But in your h a n d —it is sexy.” The rose is aggressive all the time. It is the m ovem ent o f air, a disturbance o f space, an array o f erotic phantasies, o f a ll-to o — fa m iliar fin-de-siecle sym bols:
P o sta w iłem w azon r ó ż — i od razu się z a k o tło w a ło W olter w b łęk itn ym fraku M arysień k a w nagościach R ó ż o w e g o p o w ietrza b y ło w o k ó ł tyle
Ż e c o tch nąłem sw o b o d n iej S fruw ały m o ty le
J. M a c i e j e w s k i . “ S ta n isła w G r o c h o w ia k : R o zb iera n ie do snu," [in:] C z y ta m y
[I put a va se o f r o se s there, and p ro m p tly there was a m o tio n / V oltaire in a blue g ow n Q u een M a isie in her b aren ess / Pink air w as so ab u n d an t all around / / That as I b reathed freely / B utterflies ju m p ed up]
The rose, then, is greater th an it is. It is greater by the landscapes it kindles in space. “A cow w ithout you is ju st a four-legged m ountain / W ith you it’s a b a b y .” The poet is true to himself. The absence o f a rose signifies hollow ness, a dead w orld, an ugliness o f the extravagances o f civilization. “T here is a certain dryness o f form in o u r garden M aybe / T h a t’s why there is a stum p where there was a rose.” H e is ad a m a n t in developing a m ythology o f the rose:
R ó ż o O d n a w ia m cię r ó ż o
C zym byłab y p oezja je ż e li nie w stydem G d y b y sz w a d ro n tu m a n ó w
P o łk n ą ł cię na za w sze
[R o se I revive y o u ro se / W hat w ou ld p oetry be if n o t em b arassm en t / If a sq u ad ron o f fo o ls / S w a llo w ed y o u for ever]
T he rose is not so m uch a sign o f life as a sign of art in which life can be depicted from inside, from inside the body. It is all like the pink figures in P icasso ’s paintings. T he m ore literal an in terp reta tion we ad o p t for these sem blances, the better we u n d erstan d the m eaning o f asking a b o u t the rose in the poem “U ndressing to G o to B ed.” A nd also we will be able to u n d erstan d m ore easily there is no answ er to the question in the p o e t’s conversation with the D eath.
In terp retatio n in the world o f bilingualism is not a reversal o f m etap h o r bu t its extension. T he literary text is regarded as the “trigger” o f the in te rp re te r’s language. The g ram m ar o f m etap h o r becomes som ething like a generative g ram m ar for in terpretation. It is all as it was once dem anded by Boris E ichenbaum ,26 nam ely literary research seeks to be a set o f conclusions from its exploratory jo u rn ey across literary texts’ specific features. In the definition o f in terpretation as “a hypothesis o f a hidden w hole” the em phasis is put on the “ w hole,” the “hid denness” referring to the entire literary historical context within which sem antic solutions are being sought. N o wonder then th at the in terp reter scrutinizes the p o e t’s m
etalin-- ft B. E i c h e n b a u m , S z k ic e o p r o z ie i p o e z ji (E ssa ys on P ro se a n d P o e try ), transl. by I.. P sz c z o lo w sk a . R. Z im an d . W arszaw a 1973. p. 275.
84 E d w a rd B alcer zan
guistic explications (such as G ro c h o w ia k ’s ap o stro p h e to the rose). L o tm an ’s interp retatio n o f Eugene Onegin unfolds in a space delim ited by com m ents on the w ork which are interspersed th ro u g h o u t the text. The point o f th at is to tak e note carefully o f w hatever is being said so th at the u n d ersta n d in g o f the text should reaffirm the unity o f coding and recoding. At the sam e tim e, the literalness o f the text under in terp retatio n leads to a distinction o f the te x t’s substance in its unique co nfigurations (rhythm , instru m entation , lexi cological, phraseological etc.). T he link-up o f the sign to the substance determ ines its aesthetic d im ension,27 and so m etap h o r and in terp reta tion run in the sam e direction, along the via estetica. While intra- linguistic ideology pushes the aesthetics o f literatu re o u t into a rem ote periphery, bilingualistic ideology m akes the aesthetics o f literature one o f its central problem s.
O ne m ore p o in t: bilingualist in terp retatio n nedds not am o u n t to poetizing ab o u t poetry. T he in te rp re te r’s language in th a t case extends the poetic language (and hence the literary com m u nicatio n process) not so m uch by em ulatin g the style as by the re p u d ia tio n —an a lo gously to w hat poetry d o e s— o f w hat has becom e petrified, anonym ous and com m onplace in culture. It is th at analogy which implies the sovereignty o f the idiom o f literary research; th at idiom m ust rem ain sovereign against verbal c u ltu re ’s uniform ity in the nam e o f its intrinsic plurality.
The theory o f m etap h o r m ay develop regardless o f the theory o f interp retatio n, but th at o f the theory o f m etap h o r which survives in literary consciousness is determ in ed by the in terpretative custom o f the time. W hat o f the ancient d o ctrin e o f tro pes has survived in postw ar Polish literary aw areness? Less th an w hat o f ancient sculptures and paintings has survived in m useum s. T extbooks, rang ing from D escrip tive Poetics through to A pplied Poetics, m ust be veritable descrip
tions o f the situation if in ch ap ters dealing with tropes they display
m ore sim ilarities than differences. Y ou always com e across the same thin g s—several notions which superim pose one on an other, share p arts o f their m eanings and defy all stan d ard s o f system atic classi fication, even standards such as sym m etricity o f opp osition tricks.
21 I un fold this view at len gth in " E stety k a : czw arta c z ę ść se m io lo g ii” (A esth etic s:
T extbooks as a rule m ention hyperbole, b u t not litotes. They discuss at length anim ation or personification, while paying no atten tio n to m etaphor, which objectivizes life (reification? an ti-p roso po peia?) al though th at is one o f the four rules o f trope, according to Q u inti lian. T utors cond u ctin g exercises in poetics usually get a jo lt as teachers when they have to proceed from a prom ise to unveil a system o f literary art to the vestiges o f the ancient doctrin e o f tropes which can be anything but a fo u n d atio n o f any system atic app roach tow ards literature.
W hat o f m odern literary theories has m ade its way into in terp reta tion? H ardly anything. P attern s provided by logical sem antics dissolve in a first en co u n ter with actual literary texts. Triangles, polygonal figures, m etalinguistic fram ew orks — all these go dow n in the flows o f verse created by people like Leśm ian, Czechowicz, Baczyński or S z y m b o rsk a ...
How does the view abo u t the m utual attra ctio n o f m etap h o r and in terpretation tally with the und eniable truth a b o u t tentative classi fications o f m etap h o r being defied by prevailing custom s o f in terp re ta tive practices? T he theory o f m etap h o r seeks to put in order the chaos we have inherited from an tiquity (or did m ore recent vicissi tudes o f literary theory b ring ab o u t th a t chaos?). It tries to set up clean-cut pattern s o f classification presup posing a one-to-one co rresp o n dence between each p attern and each m echanism . The classifica tion o f variants o f m etap h o r should n o t perm it the possibility o f including the sam e m etaphorical expression in several different patterns. From the angle o f in terp retatio n , the p attern s tu rn out to be records o f the process o f reception, reaffirm ations o f th eo rists’ own idiosyncrasies as readers. O ne and the sam e m etaphorical expression can ultim ately be linked up with countlessly m any theoretical patterns.
T ake the exam ple o f the m etaphor, “the light will die in the river.” 28
A. In su bstitu tio n theory, this m etap h o r can be explained in the
following w ay: the po et says “die” bu t m eans “ go o u t” (the riddle is actually simple, for in Polish we say the sam e w ords ab o u t hum an life which ends).
- x From S. F l u k o w s k i ' s p o em “ Slorice w kieracie" (The H arn essed Sun) from a co llectio n under the sam e title. W arszaw a 1929. p. 55.
86 E d w a rd B a k e rza n
B. In the m etaphorical triangle according to Jerzy Pelc,29 the nonm etap horical expression “a m an will d ie ” and the non m etap ho - rical expression “the light is going o u t” d ro p the w ords “ m an ” and “go o u t” while the rem aining two words co n stitu te the m etaphorical expression “the light will go o u t.”
C. Sem antic explication according to A n n a W ierzbicka.30 The light will go out in the river — (I am th in k in g o f th e reflexes in the river) — you would say it is not the light, bu t a hu m an being, th a t is going to die.
D. W ierzbicka provides one p attern for m e ta p h o r and an o th er for simile. But the studied text could also be fitted in to the p attern for simile. If it is expanded into an explicit statem en t: “T he light will die in the river [like a m an],” we o b tain the following series: the light will die in the river = perhap s th a t co u ld m ean a m a n ’s death. (“Explications can n o t be proved b u t only disp ro ved ,” says
W ierzbicka.)
E. A ccording to Ivor A rm stro ng R ich ard s.31 T h e m eaning o f this m etaph or is determ ined not so m uch by the sim ilarity o f appearances (of the shinking and the corpse) b ut the sam e attitu d e taken tow ards the tenor and the vehicle. D ying is the w orst th a t can happ en to m a n —going out is the worst that can hap p en to light.
F. In the theory o f “cu rren t m e ta p h o r” according to A ndrzej Bogusław ski,32 the reasoning would go in the follow ing m an n er: the exact m eaning behind the word “ will d ie ” is not know n; m aybe it m eans “ will go o u t,” m aybe “change c o lo u r” o r “ b re ak ” (dissipate in the water) o r “becom e frozen” or som ething else. T hus we will say the light in the river will becom e som ething different from w hat it is in air, and it is this inexpressible quality, which ca n n o t be articulated unless through a m etap ho r, th at is the po in t here above all.
- 9 See J. P e l c . “Z a s to so w a n ie funkcji se m a n ty czn y ch d o a n alizy p ojęcia m e ta fo r y ” (A p p ly in g S em antic F u n ctio n s to the S tu d y o f the N o tio n o f M etap h or). | in :J P ro b le m y
te o rii lite ra tu ry , ed. by H. M arkiew icz. W roclaw 1967.
,0 W i e r z b i c k a , op. cit.
See R. W e l l e k , A . W a r r e n . T heory o f L ite ra tu re , H a rm o n d sw o rth 1963. A. B o g u s ł a w s k i . "O m etaforze" (On M eta p h o r). P a m iętn ik L ite ra c k i. 1971. fuse. 4.
G. In interaction theory.33 This is not an abbreviated simile but a sem antic tran sfo rm atio n . The bew ildering ju x tap o sitio n s o f words determ ine their new sem antic configurations. “ L ight” becom es the nam e o f an elem ent the m ain feature o f which turn s o ut to be its being “m o rta l.” T he “river” (“ w a te r”), in turn, is a “leth al” elem ent (as well as a burial site). Lastly, “dying” refers no t only to living creatures, as the dictionary w ants it, but also to elem ents, as the m etap h o r implies.
H. I the instrum ental ap p roach suggested by Boris U spenski,34 the poetic inform ation is contained in the gam e o f acoustic sim ilari ties o f the w ords “will d ie” and “in the river” in Polish, and in the em ancipation o f tw o syllables in them (um rze and w rzece, respecti vely). The poetry im parts au to n o m o u s m eaning to fragm ents o f the w ords which are exposed ow ing to instrum entation. In this specific case, the fragm ent w rze m ay suggest the word urzenie (teeming) o f light in the furious waves; if so, this suggestion would not be at odds with visual experiences and, at the sam e time, it would be in o ppositio n tow ards substitutive interp retatio n (“to d ie,” th at is, “to go o u t”).
Let us stop here. If we went on with the above series, we would com e across the m echanism o f the gam e between nonsense, fable, m etap h o r and tru th o f poetic literalness. All these and sim ilar scena rios are conceivable in the space o f real poetics o f reception. They all are sub o rd in ated to sem iotic ideologies which con trol the reality o f reception. In terp retatio n can n o t break away from ideological c o n stra in ts on its own character. Its m eeting with m etap h o r and with theories' o f m etap h o r is therefore conceivable only in the space o f its own self-definition and is determ ined by the history o f literary com m u nicatio n.
T ransi, by Z yg m u n t S ie ra d a
^ See B l a c k , op. cit. T h e interaction theory is d iscu ssed in an interesting way by .1. P a s z e k . S ty lis ty k a . P rze w o d n ik m e to d y c z n y (T h eo ry o f S ty le . A Guide). K a to w ic e 1974, pp. 9 6 — 113.
,4 See B. A . U s p e n s k i . “G ra m m a tich esk a ia p raviln ost i p o etich esk a ia m etafora." (in :] T e zisy d o k la d o v c h e tv e rte i le tn e i sh k o /y p o vtorichnyin m odeliru iu sh ch im sistem a m . Tartu 1970.
