Paul Ricœur
“The rule of metaphor” SELECTION
T he possibility that metaphorical discourse says something about reality collides with the apparent constitution of poetic discourse, which seems to be essentially non-referential and centred on itself. To this non-referential conception of poetic discourse, I oppose the idea that the suspension of literal reference is the condition for the release of a power of second-degree reference, which is a properly poetic reference.
This brings the work to its most important theme, namely, that metaphor is the rhetorical process by which discourse unleashes the power that certain fictions have to redescribe reality.
(…) The metaphorical utterance functions in two referential fields at once. This duality explains how two levels of meaning are linked together in the symbol. The first meaning relates to a known field of reference, that is to the sphere of entities to which the predicates considered in their established meaning can be attached. The second meaning, the one that is to be made apparent, relates to a referential field for which there is no direct characterization (…) But this transfer from one referential field to the other supposes that the latter field is already in some way present in a still unarticulated manner (…)
Metaphor is living not only to the extent that it vivifies a constituted language. METAPHOR IS LIVING BY VIRTUE OF THE FACT THAT IT INTRODUCES THE SPARK OF IMAGINATION INTO A “THINKING MORE” AT THE CONCEPTUAL LEVEL. This struggle to “think more”, guided by the “vivifying principle”, is the “soul” of interpretation (…)
P oetic discourse brings to language a pre-objective world in which we find ourselves already rooted, but in which we also project our innermost possibilities. We must thus dismantle the reign of objects in order to let be, and to allow to be uttered, our primordial belonging to a world which we inhabit, that is to say, which at once precedes us and receives the imprint of our works.
“The Rule of Metaphor” Ricœur, Paul. 2003 (1975)