METAPHOR AND IDEOLOGY
Abstract
The contribution starts from the opening sentence of The Communist Manifesto. The author defends the opinion that communism is really a metaphor for all that is socially positive, and that, because the phrase, »the spectre of communism«, is a literary metaphor, it has retained its poetic value to the present. In contrast, statements using slave imagery which have been often used in political discourse of the left, have turned into ideology, for today the discrepancy between this obsolete imagery and social reality is so obvious that it cannot be hidden. If leftist ideas want to gain new influence, their proponents should also find new imagery, and thus new metaphors.Downloads
References
Aristotle: »On the Art of Poetry«, in: Aristotle, Horace, Longines: Classical Literary Criticism, Penguin, Harmondsworth 1965. p. 61.
F. E. Sparshott: »,As‘, or The Limits of the Metaphor«, New Literary History, Vol. VI, No. 1, The Univ. of Virginia, Charlottesville, Va., Autumn 1974, p. 85.
Thus, Stalin, in December 1901 in Tiflis, writes about »the spectre of a people’s revolution«. — Cited in Isaac Deutscher: Stalin, Penguin, Harmondsworth 1966, p. 62.
K. Marx-F. Engels: Werke, Vol. 4, Berlin 1917, p. 461.
P. Ricoeur: La métaphore vive, Seuil, Paris 1975, p. 311.
«-The Communist Manifesto is essentially a call to action. As such, it commits itself, in the main, to what one might call a Dives and Lazarus view — or better, perhaps: a Master-Slave view — of modern society: the opposition of two classes, haves and have-nots, bourgeoisie and proletariat.-« — S. S. Prawer: Karl Marx and World Literature, Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford 1976, p. 146.
Cf. Claude Lefort: Les formes de l’histoire, Gallimard, Paris 1987.
Cf. S. s. Prawer: op. cit., 148.
V. Sklovski: Uskrsnuće riječi, Stvarnost, Zagreb 1969, p. 13—14.
W. Weinrich: »Semantik der kühnen Metapher«, Deutsche Vierteljahresschrift. Vol. 37, 1963, p. 340.
C. Lefort: op. cit., p. 299.
G. Lukâcs: »Die Gegenwartsbedeutung des kritischen Realismus«, Essays über Realismus, Werke, Vol. 4. Luchterhand. Neuwied & Berlin 1971, p. 520—1.
Cf. the paper by Lev Kreft.
Cf. C. Normand: Métaphore et concept, Ed. Complexe, Bruxelles 1976.
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