Abstract
Celan's poetry is replete with metaphors that function in various ways. This article looks at two opposed functions of metaphor there: embodiment and abstraction. They rest on the fact that most cognitive processes occur unconsciously, leaving us with only a limited ability to understand their connections to metaphors. This makes it difficult to understand how a metaphor bridges between faraway and even opposed semantic fields. The dual metaphorical functions will be studied as used in three themes of Celan's language: (1) language as expression and as concealment, (2) interaction with the Other as a key to self-constitution, and (3) the drawing of the boundary between life and death. Because these themes make it difficult to understand the function of embodiment in Celan's poetry, a systematic integration of common ideas in cognitive linguistics with Wittgensteinian concepts will be suggested with the aim of showing how Celan's poetic language deals with these complexities.
First Page
144
Last Page
160
Recommended Citation
Dorit, Lemberger. 2019. ""The Dark-houred Clock": Embodiment and Abstraction in Celan's Poetry." Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art 39, (5): pp.144-160. https://tsla.researchcommons.org/journal/vol39/iss5/3
