Metaphorical Code of Perceiving a Literary Text

Abstract

In this case, metaphor is regarded in a receptive aspect, as a place of author’s and reader’s dialogic encounter. It is also considered as a subject of reflection that acquires some features of literary being. The article deals with a selective nature of such a structural component of a metaphor as the predicate, as well as emphasizes semantic relativity of a metaphor. Metaphor is viewed as linguistic co-being in relation to being. The paper suggests a description of a conventional algorithm of dialogic perception of a metaphor. It also sets forward an assumption that the immanent assimilation of the text is possible provided it is assigned with the features of a self-sufficient and unconditional reality, which unites both of its basic characteristics (the content and the form) into a single form-content unity, whereas the text sources acquire additional meaning of the context, with which they are interrelated. As for professional reading of the text, the article under studies regards the two interconnected procedures: analysis and interpretation, which may be compared to a dual perception of the object of metaphoric reflection: internal (usage) and external (in a predicative edition). The essence of analysis (reproduction) lies, above all, in its empathic usage in the text, that is in questioning the structural-semantic unity of the text as a peculiar form-content reality, created by demiurgic author’s will and intention. The major point of interpretation is closely associated with reflecting metaphoric codes of the text in recipient’s individual consciousness. In particular, in the circumstances, proposed by the postmodernist image of the world, there take place structural changes in the text itself. Consequently, it leads to a growing role of play rhetoric in the text formation. The figures of this type of rhetoric aim at persuading the reader in text reality as in a mimetic simulacrum, devoid of referential connections.