Living metaphor as the site of bidirectional literary engagement

Abstract

Articulation of an interactive model of literariness calls for separate specification of (a) a text’s perceptible mode of representation, (b) a reader’s mode of engagement with a text so perceived, and (c) the generative (e.g., creative, expressive) effects of the interaction between this mode of representation and mode of reader engagement. We present a model that identifies two aspects of metaphoric textual representation: structured sequences of nominal metaphors and quasi-metaphoric structures with optional metaphoric construal. This model also distinguishes two modes of reader engagement: expressive enactment and integrative comprehension (Kuiken & Douglas, 2017). The generativity of literary reading is located especially within the interplay between expressive enactment and sequences of metaphoric (and quasi-metaphoric) modes of representation. Evidence suggests that readers reporting expressive enactment also report inexpressible realizations and a temporal progression leading through epistemic tensions that comprise “living metaphor” (Ricoeur, 1981). Thus the generativity – and aesthetic effects – of literary reading are found within the departures from conventionality that comprise the emergent meanings of complex metaphoric structures.