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Towards a Metaphorology of the Novel
Author(s) -
Heyerick Koenraad
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
orbis litterarum
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.109
H-Index - 8
eISSN - 1600-0730
pISSN - 0105-7510
DOI - 10.1111/j.1600-0730.2006.00862.x
Subject(s) - analogy , vagueness , rhetorical question , context (archaeology) , epistemology , resistance (ecology) , linguistics , rhetoric , literature , sociology , philosophy , computer science , history , art , ecology , archaeology , biology , fuzzy logic
Most of the attempts to define the novel seem condemned in advance to an insignificant vagueness or a restricted view on the genre. Not surprisingly, writers have often resorted to analogy and metaphorical language to qualify the genre and talk about the essential aims of their work, thus overcoming the novel's resistance to definition . After briefly examining a number of theoretical implications that this question raises, I will investigate two metaphorical constellations with which the novelistic genre has been identified in early modern Europe (Mateo Alemán and the Marquis de Sade). I will tackle these metaphors not only as rhetorical devices, but also and foremost as authentic ways of grasping the connections between writer, novel form and reader on the one hand, and the novel and its larger cultural‐historical context on the other. As such, this essay wants to be a contribution to what one could call, in line with Hans Blumenberg, a metaphorology of the novel.