metaphorical language in mandel'štam

Russiarl Literature XXI (1987) 313-346 North-Holland

METAPHORICAL LANGUAGE IN MANDEL'STAM *

PETER ZEEMAN

1. INTRODUCTION

This article will deal with some aspects of metaphorical language in the later poetry of Mandel'stam. My aim here is not primarily to make another contribu- tion to the theory of metaphor. The number of books and articles in the field is large enough as it is. Nor shall I attempt a discussion of the major existing theories; this has been done - from various perspec- tives - by Mooij (19761, Ricoeur (19771, Eco (1979), and Weststeijn (19831, among others. Moreover, ever since Aristotle, a great deal has already been said, more or less successfully, to clarify the basic notions, characteristics, function and effects of metaphorical expressions, both in literary and in non- literary texts. Though one may quarrel about how much progress there has been made in the study of metaphor, enough is done, I think, to provide me with the tools and terms necessary to discuss a number of striking cases of metaphor in Mandel'stam's work.

There can be little doubt about the metaphoricity of Mandel'stam. Suffice it to quote two eminent Rus- sian literary scholars.' Lidija Ginzburg (1982:274) says in no uncertain terms: "Mandel'stam metaforiEen; 5to organiceskoe svojstvo ego myslenija". Interesting- ly enough, she also points out how this was being pre- pared for historically:

YseHElKkl CMMBOJIMCTOB OT6pOCHJlli BTOpOfi,"CBepX9yBCTBeH- Hblfi" nJlaH, HO OCTaTIOCb n03TWqeCKOe OTKpblTlIe IIOBbmleHHOii CyFreCTMBHOCTH CnOBa, TO eCTb CnOCO6HOCTH eI'0 Bbl3blBaTb HeHa3BaHHble npeacTaBxeHx5i, accouxaqx5xMx 3aMelqaTb npo- nymeHHOe. 06OCTpeHHaR aCC04HaTHBHOCTb, 6blTb MOmeT, U

*This study was financially supported by the Netherlands Organ- ization for the Advancement of Pure Research (ZWO).

0 304-3479/87/$3.50 0 1987 Elsevier Science Publishers B.V. (Nofih-Holland)

314 Peter Zeeman

6bma CaMbIM aKTUBHbIM 3SIeMeHTOM CPiMBOJIHCTA9eCKOrO HaCJIea-

CTBa. (1982:268) '

Zirmunskij, too, is very outspoken in expressing his views on the subject. He calls Mandel'stam a "veli- Eajsij fantast slovesnych obrazov" (1928:332) because the poet "ljubit soedinjat' v forme metafory ili sravnenija samye otdalennye drug ot druga rjady ponjatij" (1928:330), and concludes that

9eM @JIbIUe pa3BEiBaeTCx TBOpqeCTBO MaHJJeJIbUITaMa, TeM

CBO60aHee, menee N HeoxagaHHee ero MeTa&opusecKsie no-

JIeTbI - +aHTaCTWIeCKIle Pi IIpH~yJJ,JIHBbIe rIpbDKKM C TparIeqHJi

Ha Tpanequm. (1928:331)

Zirmunskij, it must be noted, is speaking of "Kamen"' and "Tristia", citing from the fourth stanza of "Dombi i syn" (1913):

KaK nrIenbI, BbIJIeTeB M3 YJIbFI,

PORTCR I&pbI KpyrJIblfi rOa.

and referring to lines 5-7 of "Mne cholodno. Prozrac- naja vesna" (1916):

HO Ha6epexHOti CeBepHOii peKu

ABTOM06WIeti MrIaTCR CBeTJIfIKU,

neTRT CTpeK03bI W WKII CTa.JIbHbIe.

But his remarks and conclusions can readily be brought to bear on the later Mandel'stam, as shows the following list of striking metaphors taken at random from the 1930 poetry:

&iKaR KOJlIKa - apMRHCKaR pesb -

MYWT MeHR u qapanaeT yxo (1930) fl TpaMBdHaR BEiIUeHKa CTpalIIHOir IIOpbI (1931) Yxe cBeTaeT. UIYMRT c-I 3eneHbm Tenerpa@oM (1931)

I? B canoxucax M~KHX KaTa

BbICTYIIaIOT o6naKa (1932)

&ir)'IIIKOfi 3aCTbLl-l TeJIe'$OH (1933)

Ha ,qy6OBbIx KOJleHRX CTORT rOpOAa (1935) AeHb CTORJI 0 l-IFITW rOJTOBaX (1935)

&w-Ie ReHb KaKOji-TO JICeJ-ITOpOTbIfi (1936)

A COJlHIJe IQ'PUTCR B KpaXMaJlbHO% HUqeTe (1937)

TaK rpassr 3epHUCTbIfi TOT

TeHb MOR rpbI3eT oaam (1937)

Metaphorical Language in MandeZ'Btam 315

In addition to this kind of 'small-scale' metaphors, there are metaphorical constructions of a more extended type, some of which are discernible as metaphorical only in a broader, extra-textual context. In fact, the emphasis of this article will lie on this latter type.

Although the phenomenon of metaphor may be studied for various reasons, the main general purpose of doing so is probably best formulated by Richard O.Cureton (1983:336-37) in the following quotation:

As has often been pointed out, great literary works usually convey a consistent social, cognitive, emotive, and perceptual "stance": they integrate and reorganize into coherent wholes complex facets of human experience - thus offering complete fictional models of (or alter- natives to) that particular synthesis of experience each reader comes to know as life in this world.

And, of course, metaphors play an important role in this process. Metaphors, by their very nature, analogi- cally fuse diverse experiential domains - breaking down conventional experiential categories to produce new conceptual, emotive, and perceptual complexes - in miniature, new linguistic "worlds". A reader's experience of these "worlds" is an important aspect of his/ her response to a literary text and therefore exactly how authors construct these worlds is an important issue in the study of literary art.

2. TOWARDS A DEFINITION

Before proceeding further, it will be appropriate to give an operational definition of metaphor. Though there are many definitions available, the following survey will show that it is by no means easy to choose or coin one that can do the job.

According to Christine Brooke-Rose (1958:4), Aris- totle "very wisely" did not try to distinguish between the various tropes when he defined metaphor as any replacement of the usual word by another, as "giving the thing a name that belongs to something else" (1946: 1457b). Today it is commonly accepted that Aristotle's definition does not quite suffice. As Aristotle himself did realize, metaphor, though perhaps presuppos- ing it, is much more than a simple replacement of names and words. On the same page Brooke-Rose argues that. Aristotle's third type of metaphor (the transfer from species to species) includes all metaphor, "in the sense that all metaphors involve a mental transfer from one type of object to another, from one domain of thought to another" (italics mine). Although I believe

316 Peter Zeeman

that Brooke-Rose has read more into Aristotle's definition than it actually states, the fact remains that she rightly goes beyond the level of mere words and names, as did Richards (1936) prior to her, developing his interaction theory.3 Unfortunately, her own definition still clearly reflects the duality and separ- atedness of-word (language) and world (representation): "Metaphor . . . is any replacement of one word by another, or any identification of one thing, concept ox person with another" (1958:23-24; my emphasis).

What we need, then, is a definition that makes the link between the two (word and world), for example through the (semiotic) idea of denotation or reference. We might therefore try Abrams's definition (1981:63): "In a metaphor a word which in standard ("literal") usage denotes one kind of thing, quality, or action is applied to another, in the form of an identity instead of comparison". Another option is Hugh Bredin (1984:99) who in his interesting critique of Jakobson's claim that metaphor and metonymy are primarily phenomena of, respectively, selection and combination, starts from Aristotle's broad definition, adding to it, so as to distinguish metaphor from other tropes, as follows: "metaphor is the application of the name of a thing to something else, in such a way that the name refers to both things simultaneously, and implies by&such reference that they are similar to one another".

Both are close, but not enough. For one thing, Abrams's (like that of Brooke-Rose) has the great dis- advantage that it erroneously limits metaphor to a one- word phenomenon. However, one of the distinguishing characteristics of metaphor is precisely that its linguistic range is larger than any other figure of speech. In the explicit words of Hrushovski (1984a:6-7): "If a metaphor is a two-term relation, any of its terms may cover much more than a word in a text. It is often an open-ended relation rather than a fixed unit. <...> metaphor is not a linguistic unit but a text-semantic pattern, and semantic patterns in texts cannot be identified with units of syntax". This is all the more pressing, as cases of metaphor in Modernist poetry (to which Mandel'gtam's oeuvre clearly belongs) Often extend over entire stanzas, and, consequently, cannot be discussed as single-word tropes.5

All definitions presented as far share another shortcoming. In metaphor, Eco (1983:226) has argued, "it is both *similarity' and 'opposition', or identity and difference, that are in question", or again: "metaphors set up not only similarities, but also opposi- tions" (1983:244).6 Preserving the idea of opposition

Metaphorical Language in MandeZ'Jtam 317

or difference as well as Richards' and Ricoeur's terminology (i.e., "interaction" and "semantic field", respectively), Weststeijn (1983:132) manages to describe metaphor very concisely as "an interaction of semantic fields which, logically speaking, cannot be fused, but which still make sense". Though principally correct, this description, as we shall see, can be im- proved somewhat, especially with respect to the notion of "semantic field", which according to Weststeijn (1983:132) "comprises, apart from lexical meaning, the

whole range of connotative meanin s: associative, emo- tional, contextual connotations". (r

Recognition that metaphor, particularly metaphor in literature, cannot be discussed as a one-word or even a one-sentence phenomenon has led to the now generally accepted insight that the process of understanding metaphorical constructions is to an extraordinary degree co- and contextually determined. This point is so much debated in recent literature on metaphor,' that I will not join the argument here. Suffice it here to give a short account of the two major steps that have advanced this insight.

The emphasis on context in the interpretation of metaphor was preceded by the acknowledgement that 'good' or 'strong' metaphors are not just expendable and easily paraphrasable stylistic ornaments, illus- trations or decorations but cognitive instruments that function integraZZy in a poetic or narrative text. That is, in order to interpret a metaphor in a text, we must have recourse to the whole textual environment, or co-text, of the metaphorical construction at hand. This is of course the lesson Cleanth Brooks taught us in his essay "Metaphor and the Tradition" in which he stood up for Modernist poetry (NB: By context Brooks means what I have called co-text): "with the modern poet, the value of the figure must in all cases be referred to its function in the context in which it oc- curs <... > Metaphor is not to be considered, then, as the alternative of the poet, which he may elect to use or not, since he may state the matter directly and straightforwardly if he chooses. It is frequently the only means available if he is to w-rite at all" (1948: 25-26).

Let me illustrate this with Mandel'stam's "Kuda mne det'sja v stem janvare?" (1937). The second quatrain of the poem opens with these remarkable twin metaphors:

M. nepeymcoB namqux Y~EKM,

ii ySIULl lIf?PeKOUIeHHblX ~yJElHb1,

What might be the reason for equating alleys with stock-

318 Peter Zeeman

ings and, on top of that, predicating them by "barking?" And why call streets "lumber-rooms" and say, in addition, that they are "warped"? To be sure, one could point to a faint likeness of appearances between, on the one hand, alleys and stockings (in a way, both are cylindrical or tube-like) and, on the other, between certain streets and lumber-rooms (both can be very dis- orderly). Furthermore, ZajuZ'bich can be taken to refer to dogs barking in the alleys, while perekodennych (in the more literal sense of the word) may allude either to sagging roofs or leaning houses, or (in the sense of 'twitched') to the faces of the people in the streets or even to the faoades of the houses. But taking the metaphors by themselves, this is probably as far as we can get in our construal.

Let us now take a look at the surrounding text. As it happens, the central themes of the poem are expressed in a very direct and straightforward manner. Take the first stanza, for example:

Kyga me ReTbcx B ATOM RHBape?

OTKpblTblk FOpOR cyMac6pogHo IJeIlOK...

OT 3aMKHyTbIX R lIT0 JIM I’IIBFIH RBepefi? -

kI X04eTCR MbIrIaTb OT BCeX 3aMKOB II CKpelIOK.

or the closing lines:

- %iTaTeJISi! COBeTWiKa! Bpasa!

Ha necTmue Komseir - pasroaopa 6!

As we can see, the text introduces a lyrical I whose mood is one of fear, despair, obsessive feelings of being locked up and isolated. So it is from his point of view that the alleys and streets were seen as stockings and lumber-rooms. And now the purpose of the metaphors becomes much clearer: alleys seen as stockings and streets seen as lumber-rooms underline the idea of being encircled, of not being able to escape. The poet's emotions are externalized, projected onto Voroneg, which in turn becomes a town of fear where "its inhabitants barricaded themselves against their terror and fled from one corner to the shelter of another" (Baines 1976:87):

ki IIpXsyTCR IlOCIIeIUHO B YI-OJIKU,

kI BbI6eraIOT w3 yrno~ yrnafibl.

Seen in this new perspective, the two predicates too can be better understood: Zajugisich (barking dogs) and perekosennych (cf. e.g. “Ot boli ego perekosilo") con-

Metaphorica Language in MandeZ'Stam 319

note imminent danger, fear, pain, thus contributing to the overall feeling of doom dominating the poem as well as its referents: the lyrical I (Mandel'stam) and the town of Voroneg with its inhabitants.

If Brooks's essay marked a shift from the analysis and evaluation of metaphorical constructions per se to the interpretation of metaphor-in-the-text, recent years have witnessed a successful attempt in the study of (poetic) metaphor to go beyond the boundaries of the text. One has come to realize that metaphor cannot be studied or understood satisfactorily on a strictly textual level alone: that metaphor cannot be limited, as Hrushovski (1984a:6) says, to "the level of 'language' or 'meaning units' as separate from the level of 'represented objects' and the 'world' of a poem". One important implication of this realization is that we need other categories to describe the metaphorical process. In fact, most students of metaphor today ' emphasize that metaphorical construal involves not just semantic features of words but encyclopedic properties of referents, not so much dictionary markers as systematic world knowledge. The difference between dictionary (or analytic) properties and encyclopedic (or synthetic) properties is explained by Eco (1983: 229) : "A dictionary is supposed to set forth only those properties that are necessary (what classical rhetoric would call "conceptual content"), while the encyclopedia includes all those units of knowledge that concern the contexts in which a given lexeme will occur (and beyond those the metonymic contiguities, and any inference in the form of extralinguistic knowledge) ". Small wonder that the 'Integrational Semanti- cian' and Pragmatist Hrushovski and the Semiotician Eco reach similar conclusions concerning the study of metaphor. Where the former says that "we must observe metaphors .,. as semantic patterns, changing in the text-continuum, context-sensitive, relating to specific (fictional or real) frames of reference and dependent on interpretations" (1984a:7), the latter asserts that "We can venture . . . an explanation of the metaphorical mechanism that is (I) founded on a componential semantics in the form of an encyclopedia; and (2) takes into account, at the same time, rules for contextual insertion" (1983:243), explaining that the contextual pressure comes "Either (a) from the identification of a theme or topic <...>; or (b) from the reference to frames, which permit us to establish not only what is being talked about, but also under what profile, to what ends, and with what in view, it is being talked about" (1983:247).l'

320 Peter Zeeman

But where Eco is content with existing terminology (Max Black's 'focus' and 'frame'), Hrushovski proposes the addition of the valuable notion of "frame of reference" (fr), which he defines as "any semantic continuum of two or more referents that we may speak about" (1984b:230). An fr is a unit of discourse which (though not recognized by linguists "because it has no gram- matically formalized properties") provides "the base for a... complementary and encompassing, theory of metaphor" (1984a:ll).ll Unlike linguistic units (groups of words, sentences), frs are constructs "based on dis- continuous elements in a text, which are linked to each other by some kind of a flexible but necessary semantic syntax <...>. They provide the bridge between words of natural language and the representation of the ever- changing 'World'. c . ..> By means of frs we speak with 'world-experience' rather than with codified words of limited language" (1984a:ll).

In the light of the above discussion, the advantage of using frs rather than semantic fields becomes apparent. The notion of semantic field is still closely connected with isolated syntactic units, first of all words. On the other hand, frs, by their very nature in- tegrating (co-)textual and encyclopedic information (world knowledge) and at the same time transgressing the boundaries of syntactic units, are adequate concepts for analyzing and describing (poetic) metaphors. Hrushovski (1984a:15) adds to this: "Using this concept for the description of metaphors, we are not bound by the stability of 'objects' or their 'associated commonplaces' (Black), but rather depend on the in- dividual features of a specific fr and its possible gap-filling. Moreover, we do not limit metaphor to relations between real objects, but use the same terminology if one (or both) term(s) of the metaphor is (are) a state of affairs, an abstract concept ('love'), a mood, a religion, an idea".

On this score, I propose to slightly alter and extend Weststeijn's definition as follows: metaphor is a special way of speaking or writing, characterized by a meaningful interaction of frames of reference which, logically speaking, cannot be fused.

3. THREE-TERM METAPHORS

In this section I shall discuss a metaphorical technique which I consider typical of Mandel'gtam, if not unique to him. It concerns metaphorical constructions which are made up of a three-term relation, instead of

Metaphorica Language in MandeZ'Ztam 321

the more usual two-term relation. In what follows I shall call this phenomenon three-term metaphor. If in some of the next examples the presence of two terms (frs I parts of an fr) and, hence, the existence of an ordinary metaphor will not be disputed, the presence of the third term and the existence of three-term metaphor may for some be dubious, and this will raise the serious question to which I shall return extensively in section 4.

A straightforward example of the kind of metaphor I have in mind is provided by "Dro2?i mira dorogie" (19371, which opens with an analogy between yeast, poetry (Zvuki, sZezy i trudy) and driving rain:

,Qpowxn wipa qoporne -

3BYKM, CJIe3bI n TpY,lJbI -

YfiapeHbR goxqesble

3aKunamqeii 6e,qbr

It would seem that instances of three-term metaphor are rather rare in literature, let alone in everyday speech. Probably, one of the reasons is that in practice it will not be easy to find or, more accurately, to establish the common ground on which to base an analogy between three concepts from different spheres which is meaningful and reproducible without becoming too far-fetched or artificial. As Max Black (1979:23) asserts, "there are some constraints upon creativity: one cannot couple any two nouns at random and be sure to produce an effective metaphor". If this is true of ordinary metaphor, it is even more so of three-term metaphor. That Mandel'Stam learned to deal with this problem at a relatively early stage in his career, however, is illustrated by "Bessonnica" (1915) where a fleet of ships is compared to a line of ducklings and a flock of cranes, the imagery thus taking off, as Nilsson (1966:150) noted, from earth into the skies:

II CllUCOK Kopaike& nporIen A0 CepeAnHbI:

C&i WnHHbd BbIBOAOK, Ceii IIOe3A XypaBJIPiHhIii,

qT0 HaA %UIaAOIO KOrAa-TO IlOAHaJlCR.

But let me return to the 1930 poetry, more specifically, to the two closing quintets of "FaStongEik" (1931) which appeared wrongly as a separate poem (No.249) in Volume One of the CoZZected Works:

KaK HapOAHacI rpOMaAa,

rIpornn6arr 3eM.nM B nOT,

&IOl?ORpyCHOe CTaAO

322 Peter Zeeman

npOnbLneHHOl0 apMaJJOfi

POBHO B ~O~OBY nnblBeT.

TenKH C HeXHblm 6oKaMM

kI 6bNKH-6aJlOBHIIKN,

A 3a HNMM - KopaBnmm -

~y~BO~H~b1 C 6yiiBOnaMH

kl CBR~eHHWKU-6blKW.

As distinct from the majority of 1930 poems in which, as we shall see, one term has to be inferred by the reader, here the three terms (frs) of the metaphorical construction are all stated in the text: 1) a group of people: narodnaja gromada, (s nez'nymi bo-

kami, bazovniki, svja8benniki; 2) a herd of cattle: stado, teZki (s nez'nymi bokami),

byc?ki, bujvoZicy, bujvolami, byki;

3) a fleet of ships: mnogojarusnoe, armadoj, plyvet, korabljami.

More problematic for the reader, both in imagining the phenomenal situation(s) of the poem" and in identifying the third term of the metaphor, is "Begit volna - volnoj volne chrebet lomaja" (1935). The trouble with this third fr is that it has found no immediately demon- strable textual expression. No doubt this has something to do with its hazardous subject, the Five-Year Plans, which I take for granted here. But I am sure some evidence might be obtained from other sources such as related works by the same author or information about his beliefs, values, concerns and so on. And I suspect that this is how Baines (1976:138-139) proceeded in recovering the hidden subject of the poem. However, precisely because "it was inconceivable that its fundamental subject . . . should be mentioned by name", I would call the poem Aesopian rather than allegorical, as Baines did. More specifically, I regard "BeZit..." as an Aesopian utterance based upon the principle of metaphor rather than of allegory. As such it is on a par with poems to be discussed in the next section.

fh?XCUT BOJlHa - BOmIOfi BOJlHe xpe6eT J'lOMaFI,

kiaaffcb Ha JlyHy B HeBOJlbHHsbefi TOCKe,

l4 flHbIqapcKaR: nysxna Monoaas - HeyCblnJIeHHaR CTOmiUa BOSlHOBaR -

KpUBeeT, Megem M poeT pot B necKe.

A sepes B03gyx CyMpaWiO-xJIOn4aTblfi

Metaphorica Language in Mandel'8tam 323

HeHasaTOfi CTeHbI MepeuaTcR 3y6qbI,

kl C IIeHHbIX JIeCTHUIl IlaAaI0T COJlJJaTbl

CyJITaHOB MHWTeJlbHbIX - pa36pbI3raHb1, paS’bRTbI, -

ki RH pa3HOCSiT X.lIaQHbIe CKOIIybI.

The basic frs participating in the metaphor can be out lined as follows:

1) the eternal, aimless movement of the surf with its towering waves breaking on a sandy beach:

2) the endless ranks of soldiers needlessly sent into action as cannon-fodder:

3) the Five-Year Plans: "The waves of each plan, suc- ceeding each other, . . . merely destroying the forces which made up their strength in the useless attempt to reach for the moon which exercised a fatal at- traction over them" (Baines 1976:139).

One might object that there exists a fourth fr in the poem (the "sleepless", "wavy" capital of line 4), and hence consider this, by analogy, a case of four-term metaphor. One might perhaps look at it that way, but I prefer to speak of a sub-fr which is added to frl or fr2 (or both), thus creating an ancillary metaphor on a lower level (jany8arskaja pudina moZodaja I* Neusyp- Zennaja stoZica volnovaja) with a secondary significance for the basic three-term metaphor.

The same problem arises in the first poem of the "Vos'mistisija" cycle (1933, 1935):

JIm6~w.3 IlORBSIeHUe TKaHN,

Koraa nocne ,q~yx mm Tpex,

A TO seTbIpex 3~Ixamifi

&3WeT BbIIIpRMMTeJlbHbIfi B3ROX -

Ei JQ’raMM IIapyCHbIX POHOK

OTKpbITbIe (pOpMb1 rIepTR,

EIrpaeT IIpOCTpaHCTBO C~~OCOHOK -

He 3HaBIuee nmIbKEi ,QE~TR.

In this particular octet a parallel is drawn between breathing (11.2-4), sailing or the sweep of sails in the sky (11.1,5-7) and the natural, unrestrained process of composing poetry (implied except for tkani which refers both to texture, say, of a sail and to osnova, soderZanie,13 contents or pattern, e.g., of a poem).

Now what about the fr of the child in line B? I would say that this time we are indeed dealing with a rare and genuine example of four-term metaphor, since the 'child' fr is on a par with the other frs, sharing

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the common motif of 'unconditioned', 'unrestricted' and so forth.

Thus, the respective metaphorical relations between the various frs of the two poems just discussed can be illustrated in the following diagrams (m = motif or common ground):

"Begit volna..." "Ljublju pojavlenie tkani"

m = waster futility, m = freedom, playfulness,

senseless, destructive absence of restrictions

The three-term-metaphor technique reaches an artistic climax in the exquisite "Roidenie ulybki" (1936-37):

Korga sayJIbr6aeTcfi AHTR c &i3BkUltiHKOZi H rOpeCTH II CJ’IaCTH,

KOHqbI er0 YJ-lbI6Kli, He UlYTR,

YKOAHT B oKeancKoe 6essnacTbe.

EMU HeBblpa3HMO XOPOUIO ,

Yrnawi ry6 0~0 urpaeT B cease - ki probe yxe CTpOSWIWi ICIOB

mz 6e~KOne~HOrO lK038aWbR RBH.

Ha JIaIibI 253 [email protected] TIO,lWUICR MaTepMK -

YJIEITKM: pTa HannisB N npIi6JwxeHbe - ki 6beT B rJIa3a OgUH aTJIaHTOl3 Muir: RBJleHb5I RBHOrO B =lliCSIO Yy,U&?C BCt?JleHbR.

kl UBeT H BKYC IlpOCTpaHCTBO IlOTBPFIJIO,

Xpe6To~ II apKom ~IOJWUICX MaTepsK, YXtPiTKa BbIIlOIISSla, ynbl6Ka IlpOCZirw7S, K~K gsa Konqa NX paAyra cwwana, H B o6a rnasa 6beT aTnaNToB M&W.

Since Jennifer Baines (1976:147-152) has examined this


poem quite thoroughly, 1 shall confine myself to some summary remarks. The basic frs involved are (1) a child beginning to smile, (2) the genesis of man/evolution, and (3) the composition of poetry. The common ground is the unforced gradual process of formation and cognition. That poetry is involved here becomes clear from intertextual clues. In a quatrain written at about the same time the link between a smile and poetry (cre- ative freedom, artistic integrity) is expressed more openly:

Ilo~usnmcb Ha wip ewe neMHor0,

Ha AeTefi EI Ha cHera Ho ynbl6Ka HenogKynHa, KaK aopora,

Henocsryuwa, He cnyra.

Another signal is the presence of the notion of lips (UgZami gub in line 6), the invariable symbol of poetry in Mandel'stam's work. Moreover, as Baines has observed, the image of curved lips recurs indirectly thsough a series of similar images: a mountain ridge, a back-bone, a snail's shell.

With most of the above examples I have touched upon, and implicitly taken a view on, a question I shall be dealing with more extensively in the next section. It is the question of whether both (or all three) frs should be expressed "in so many words" for US to be able to speak of (three-term) metaphor. Anticipating the argument in 4.2, I would suggest that in the end it does not matter. For basically the entire metaphorical process, though triggered off and guided by textual indices, takes place not so much "in the text" as in the reader's mind.

4. "ZAXUTAV ROT...". METAPHOR OR NOT? THE TEXT-IN-ITS- SITUATION

4.1. "Zakutau rot..."

Let us observe the following poem, taken from the cycle "Armenija" (1930):

3aKyTaB POT, KaK BJIaXHyI0 QO39,

Aepxta B pyrcax 0cbMiirpaaIible coTbI,

Bee y~po gHefi Ha OKpawHe MHpa

TbI npOCTORJIB, I-JIOTaR CJIe3bI.

kl OTBepHyJIaCb CO CTbIAOM M CKOp6bH)

OT ropogo~ 6oponaTbIx BOCTOKa; kI BOT JIeXGiUIb Ha MOCKaTeJIbHOM JIO?Ke

ki C Te6sx CHNMaKlT IlOCMepTHyh3 MaCKy.

326 Peter Zeeman

In this poem one frame of reference (frl) can be es- tablished at once, and with accuracy: it is a female figure covering her mouth, holding honeycombs in her hands, holding back the tears, rejecting Eastern cities and, finally, lying on her death-bed. Within this frame, the poem seems to be about a woman in distress - not just an ordinary woman but, in view of the two closing lines, apparently a lady of some importance. The woman dies, but we are not told of what. (Was it some physical illness, or grief, say, over an unhappy marriage or a tragic love-affair, or of shame concerning a scandal that happened to her in the East?) One might of course settle for this frame of reading and simply enjoy, among other things, the striking simile in line 1, the somewhat bizarre metaphorical expression garodov borodatych vostoka for whatever it is worth, or the concise fashion in which the poet managed to convey to us an intriguing if puzzling tra- wdy . To do so, however, means that one is willing to accept the fact that many questions and ambiguities concerning the text remain unresolved. Questions like (in addition to the ones I have already posed): Why

was the woman holding honeycombs in her hands?, How long is Vse utro dnej? (Vse utro alone would seem to have been more than enough), Where is na okraine mira?, What exactly have the cities in the East to do with the lady's shame and grief? Leaving questions like these unanswered, however, would put us in an awkward and very unstable interpretative situation. unstable because it conflicts with any reader's or interpreter's urge to give coherence and point to every detail of a piece of (literary) discourse.

Moreover, intuitively one senses that there is something else going on in this poem. In fact, the text itself offers clues far more reliable than our intuition. First of all I am thinking of the phrases that I have mentioned in the preceding paragraph (os'~~gr~~n~~ so- tY4, Vse utro dnej na okraine mira, Ot gorodov borodatych vostoka). These expressions can be regarded as what Riffaterre calls "ungrammaticalities", anomalies in the text, contradictory details or difficulties that function as signals notifying the reader where to look for clues to the poem's significance, that is, to what the poem is really about.14 Where are we to look, then?

At this point it is high time to remind ourselves that the poem under scrutiny is part of a cycle called "Armenija". Having come this far, I believe it requires no great leap of the mind (1) to conclude that the expressions in question should (also) be taken to refer

Metaphorical Language in Mandel'Btam 327

to Armenia (as will be seen, parts of the expressions recur in the cycle with a more or less precise referent) and (2) to suppose that the poem is really about Armenia, or mole accurately, about Armenia seen as a woman.

Thus the second frame of reference (Sr2) appears to be Armenia situated at the edge of the world, turned away from the "bearded" cities of the East. Now we have two logically remote, ingeniously interwoven frs, with the first fr in a textually dominant position.15 In order to be able to speak of metaphor, we have to show how these frames interact so as to make sense.

I shall first attempt to decipher the above-mentioned phrases, which are liable to pertain to fr2. This can be done with the help of the cycle-context and some basic knowledge of Armenia. The second poem in the cycle, "Ty rozu Gafiza kol

i ses"', has the lines

"PleE'mi as 'migrannymi dy.5i.S' MuZickich bycaz'ich cer- kvej". This cross-reference strongly suggests that "oc-. tagonal honeycombs" should be taken to refer to the massive fortress-like churches to be found everywhere in Armenia. Vse utro dnej alludes to a particular, early phase in Armenia's age-long history, while na okraine mira refers to its geographical position as the east-most country of the West. Lastly, gorodov borodatych vostoka simply stands for something like 'the cities of the East (Persia, Turkey) ruled by bearded Sirdars" (cf. Ty ryZeborodych sardarov / Tdrpela sred' kamnej i gl$n from the third poem 'Ty krasok sebe po- Eelala").

In the preceding paragraph I deliberately used the word 'deciphered" as distinct from, say, 'construed' or 'interpreted'. Let me explain the difference. The former verb I use to denote the preliminary activity of identifying what specific part or aspect of an fr (the proper term, tenor or, in Genette's terminology, compai-5) is being referred to metaphorically by the poet. This activity is a necessary step which must be taken whenever one term (domain, fr) of a metaphorical construction is unstated, not explicitly mentioned but implied, evoked or suggested by the context. It is the type of meta hor Brooke-Rose has called 'Simple Re- placement": 1B (1958:32) * l7

"metaphor with the proper term left out" The latter verbs can be reserved to sum

up the subsequent procedure I8 by which one tries to assign the full and proper meaning of the metaphor while taking into account the mutual relationship between the "deciphered" part or aspect and that part or aspect of the other fr to which it is directly linked, e.g., churches and honeycombs, or, strictly speaking,

328 Peter Zeeman

churches integrated or embedded in fr 2 (Armenian churches) and honeycombs integrated or embedded in frl (honeycombs held in a woman's hands).

I shall go on with the more 'cryptic' passages of the poem, that is, with the passages that belong logically to frl. In doing so I shall confine myself first to lines f-6. This seems to me legitimate in view of the 'compositional' or 'temporal' caesura, which di- vides the octet into two unequal parts: (i) lines l-6, marked by the past tense (prostojaZa, otuernutas'), and (ii) lines 7-8, marked by the present tense (Ze- ZitY' , snimajut 1 .

Line 1 contains a predominantly visual image. But speaking in terms of fr2, an image of what? Rot returns once in the cycle, in "Cholodno roze v snegu": lltob ta- jal sneg vo rtu. There it is a metaphor for the snow- covered top of the mountain mentioned in line 8 (V&s' vozduch vypiZa ogromnaja gora). Thus one might take the referent of Zakutav rot to be a mountain (top), presumably (that of) the Ararat, wrapped in mist, clouds and snow, as if by a protective covering. So much for a 'concrete' interpretation. The rose simile, opesating in each of the two frs separately, encourages a far more interesting 'symbolic' explanation.lg As I have argued elsewhere (Zeeman 1985), the mouth-mountain top metaphor in "Cholodno raze..." has extremely negative connotations. In "Zakutav,..", the situation is entirely different, almost the reverse, for which main- ly the comparison with a rose is responsible. Through rose (the traditional symbol of beauty, art, poetry) and mouth (mouth stands to a human being as art and culture stand to a people or a country: both are a means to artistic self-expression) the mountain has become a positive image imbued with connotations connected with art and culture.

The line .Ty prostojala, gZotaja slezy alludes to the many disasters that befell Armenia throughout its history, chiefly on account of its unique geographical position and the religious path it had chosen. This theme is repeated in the first half of the second quatrain which focuses on the cleft between this Christian nation and its heathen neighbouring countries (Turkey, Persia).

The information gathered so far allows me to sum- marize what the first part of the poem is about. Rough- ly speaking, it expresses what the poet sees as the essence of Armenia's history. The first Christian State in the world (since 301 A-D.), Armenia cherish- ed its own Mediterranean cultural heritage and clung stubbornly and steadfastly to its religion, thus pro-

Metaphorica Language in Mandel'Btam 329

tecting itself, at all costs, against hostile Oriental influences. The poet's positive valuation of the typical Armenian culture, especially its religion," has found the clearest expression in the metaphor of line 2 which equates churches with honeycombs. The analogy is, among other things, founded on the resemblance of form and colour: both have polygonal brownish-yellowish structures. Yet of major importance and interest is the fact that the Armenian churches and, by implication, Armenia's culture are said to have such qualities as fertility, nutritiousness, life-givingness and so forth.

If the first part of the poem dealt with Armenia's historical significance, the remainder (11.7-8) is likely, in view of the present-tense verbs, to inform us about the contemporary situation (i.e., the 1930s). And if the historical role played by Armenia was accom- panied by sacrifices (glotaja sZezy, so . . . skorb'ju), the present looks even worse.

The adjective moskateZ'nom occurred in the second stanza of "Ty krasok sebe poZelala": Strana moskateZ'- nych poz'arov. As we can see, it is closely associated with destruction (poz'arou), though in a historical perspective (the second and third stanzas concentrate on ancient troublesome times). In "Zakutav...", destruction has become death: s tebja snimajut posmert- nuju masku. But why suddenly death? Where does it come from? The. answers cannot be found in the text, nor in the cycle for that matter. We may resort to the recent historical situation in which the poem is embedded. The death Mandel'stam is speaking of may be interpreted as the sovietization forced upon Armenia by Stalin. It has turned the ancient country into a satellite state, thus gradually destroying its former identity.21 This is not the only occasion that contemporary Soviet reality penetrated into the cycle. Close readings of the ninth and tenth poems reveal other such moments. Evidence in confirmation of my interpretation of the theme of death in the poem is further provided, indirectly, by the epithet 'moskatel'nyj'. Being only one letter away from MOSKVAtel'nom, moskatet'nom might very well be taken as a pun alluding to the fact that by 1930 Armenia was well at the mercy of the Moscow policy of economic exploitation. It is worth noting in this connection that the theme of trade and merchan- dise (moskatel'nom) is repeated in the second stanza of "0 porfirnye cokaja granity", again with negative connotations related to contemporary Soviet society (cf. Zeeman 1985). I have restricted my interpretation

of the metaphors in "Zakutav..." to their semantic functioning. Though incomplete even within this limited

330 Peter Zeeman

scope, the discussion has two other shortcomings that should at least be mentioned. First, there is the clash quality, which is the result of a collision or tension between two (logically) incompatible domains (Armenia and a lady in distress). Hrushovski's general conclusion on the clash value of metaphor applies to Mandel'stam's poem, too: "The clash between two frs . . . and the various effects this may have on readers, is one of the major, non-semantic, functions of metaphor" (1984:19).

second, one should note the 'pictorial', 'optical' or 'image' quality of the metaphor, that is, its capac- ity to evoke visual sensations in the reader's mind. This is particularly noticeable in lines l-2 and 7-8. However, the question of mind picturing (which of course goes beyond metaphors, since it may also include literal descriptive passages) is extremely difficult, not the least because of its physiological, neurological and psychological implications. Suffice it to sketch some of the chief problems. To begin with, the views taken in the debate range from Friedman's claim (1972:49) that "We can...best discuss the functioning of a poem's imagery without involving at any point the question of the sensations in our minds or in that of the poet" to Arnheim's contention in VisuaZ ZVzinking (1969) that visual and other imagery provides the foundation for all effective thinking."

Probably both positions are too radical. As far as Friedman is COnCerned, one exception comes to mind immediately in case of which it will be difficult not to have or form mental images. I am thinking of double (or triple) imagistic metaphors which are firmly grounded on a likening of appearances between the two (or three) concrete domains involved. Form and colour being part and parcel of such metaphors, visualization is guaranteed to play a role in understanding and ap- preciating them. Thus, when Gogol', in Mertvya dugi, compares someone's head to a samovar, the reader is required to produce the image of a samovar and a human head and to search them for similarities, which might eventually result in a blending of both images. More- over, the images (especially that of the samovar) are likely to be clear and detailed; for an image in the Humean sense of a "faint impression" probably won'tdo. Of course, purely imagistic metaphors are rare: usually this type of metaphor involves more: "The poet, af- ter all, aims at richness of meaning, and the meaning that is only a match of appearances typically does not do enough of the work of poetry. <...> for instance, when Yeats goes to the trouble of calling an old man a

Metaphorical Language in MandeZ'Ztam 331

'tattered coat upon a stick', he means to say more than just that an old man can look a little like a coat upon a stick. The brittle and cut-off-from-life nature of sticks enriches the metaphor at levels beyond the visual" (Perkins 1983:318-319). As we have seen, the same can be said mutatis mutandis of Man- del'stam's honeycomb-churches metaphor.

As for Arnheim, a measure of caution comes from Perkins (1983) and Mitchell (1984). Perkins, who on the whole acknowledges the importance of mental imagery t warns us that "in poetry a great deal of poetic figuration involves no blatant imagery. For instance, when Shakespeare writes 'Summer's lease hath all too close a date', the metaphor evokes little imagery. In fact, it resists encoding as an image even if we try" (1983:318). And commenting on the last quatrain of Shakespeare's sonnet no.73:

In me thou seest the glowing of such fire, That on the ashes of his youth doth lye, As the death-bed, whereon it must expire, Consum'd with that which it was nurrisht by.

he writes (1983:319): "Even <.. .> when something might be imaged, the reader is not always well advised to do so. <.. .> The text provides concrete objects to imag- ine - fires, ashes, death-beds. But the effort to fit them into a coherent image leads to rather silly re- suits. Rather, the justice of the metaphor is to be sought on the more abstract and functional meanings of the constituent terms".

For all its simplicity, the practical objection Mitchell (19.84:507) raises is annoyingly strong: "Peo- ple may report experiencing images in their heads while reading or dreaming, but we have only their word for this; there is no way (so the argument goes) to check up on this objectively. And even if we trust the re- ports of mental imagery, it seems clear that they must be different from real, material pictures. Mental images don't seem to be stable and permanent the way real images are, and they vary from one person to the next: if I say 'green', for instance, some of you may see green in your mind's eye, but some of you will see a word, or nothing at all". Considerations like these also underlie Friedman's essay and led him to the cate- gorical statement quoted above.

Despite all uncertainty, one matter seems to be settled. If mind picturing does play a role in reading and understanding (poetic) metaphor, then the image must be regarded as a concrete representation aroused

332 Peter Zeeman

by the verbal (semantic) element and intrina<eaZZy t-ied up with it.24 This seems to me one of the major conclusions that can be drawn from the writings of Hester (1972) (and Ricoeur [1979] who follows Hester and Henle [1958] in this respect): "Metaphorical seeing as has to do with the meaning of language"; "Meta- phorical imagery is fused with or invoZved in metaphorical meaning"; Metaphorical seeing as involves imagery associated with the meaning of language" (Hester 1972:114,115,117).

This idea can be connected with Mitchell's general and'historical view of the concept of image. He, too, recognizes that 'images are inevitably conventional and contaminated by language' (1984:529). According to Mitchell, there exists a dynamic interrelationship between word and image, the one supplementing the other and vice versa in varying degrees depending on the stage in our history of culture: 'The dialectic of word and image seems to be a constant in the fabric of signs that a culture weaves around itself. What varies is the precise nature of the weave, the relation of warp and woof. The history of culture is in part the story of, a protracted struggle for dominance between pictorial and linguistic signs' (1984:529). Having chosen the relationship between algebra and geometry as an apt analogy, he points out that 'The advantage of the mathematical model is that it suggests the in- terpretive and representational complementarity of word and image, the way in which the understanding of one seems inevitably to appeal to the other' (1984: 531). Mitchell concludes his essay by proposing 'on the one hand, a renewed respect for the eloquence of images, and on the other hand, a renewed faith in the realism of language, a sense that discourse does pro- ject worlds and states of affairs that can be pictured concretely and tested against other representations' (1984:531).

4.2. metaphor or not? The text-in-its-situation Some would be ready to agree with me that "Zaku-

tav..." must be regarded as a case of (extended) metaphor , since the text fits the definition given at the end of section 2. But others might want to object, with Hrushovski (2984a:7-8), that "A metaphor exists only if two domains exist vividly in a text'.

The same problem arises when we take a look at another poem of the "Armenija" cycle, one that I have analyzed elsewhere: "0 poxfirnye cokaja granity". In this poem, too, the presence of one domain (contempor-

Metaphorica Language in MandeZ'Btam 333

ary Soviet State) is hardly 'felt' any more: it has almost completely disappeared from the text, the only noticeable remnant being Gosudarstvennogo. The second stanza in its entirety seems to describe Kurd merchants in a "metaphorically unmarked" language. However, my analysis based on intertextual data did show that the stanza is at the same time about Soviet writers. Again, the question is : Are we still dealing with metaphor? I believe so. It all depends on the context and our knowledge of it. In fact, Mendelson (1982:44) has already argued that the relationship between metaphor and context should include "Situations where there is no apparent clash between "metaphorically marked" and "metaphorically unmarked" words, for the former can be understood literally within a given context, their metaphoric "markedness" being activated through "semantic accumulation" and "association". A standard example would be Smith is a plumber, which is quite literal but may be(come) metaphorical if we know that Smith is really a dentist. What I want to stress here is (1) that the given sentence contains no formal metaphor, and (2) that the information that Smith is a dentist need not be presented to us in the text at hand, sup- posing that the above sentence were excerpted from a text. It is sufficient that the interpreter or reader knows, from whatever source of inter- or extra-textu.al information that Smith is really a dentist. Basically, then, the situation is no different from what we observed elsewhere on irony (Zeeman 1986). At times the pragmatics of situation, the general conditions surrounding utterance or discourse, and not the immediate verbal context (co-text), determine whether or not we have metaphor (or irony) before us.

Useful here is the distinction Harald Weinrich (1976) has posited between micrometaphorics (Mikro-

Metaphorik) , metaphorics of the context (Kontext-Meta- phorik), and metaphorics of the text (Text-Metaphorik). Mikro-Metaphorik and Kontext-Metaphorik refer to metaphors identifiable and interpretable chiefly within what Hrushovski (1984b) has called the Internal Field of Reference (IFR) constructed by a literary text.25 Text-Metaphorik, on the other hand, goes beyond such a fictional construct: 'Text-Metaphorik sol1 heissen, als Ort des Metaphernereignisses den Text-in-der-Situa- tion anzusehen. Ein Text wird in einer Situation analysiert, wenn die ('pragmatischen') Bedingungen der Kom- munikation, die das Textereignis maglich machen, mit analysiert werden" 11976:337). With this in mind, let us return for a moment to "0 porfirnye...". As we can see, the only small-scale formal metaphorical expres-

334 Peter Zeeman

sion is Zysyj cokol’ 1 Gosudarstvennogo zvonkogo kamnja (11.3-4). NOW, when the poem is concerned with the description of a caravan of Kurd merchants climbing a stony mountain slope, what is the point, one might ask, of calling the mountain a socle, of modifying stone by gosudarstvennogo ? The first part of the question can be answered quite satisfactorily without leaving the fictional world of the poem: by calling the mountain a socle, we might argue, the poet tried to underline the hardness and slipperiness of the mountain slope, thus adding to the main theme of the stanza, which is the difficult movement of the peasant's horse. The second part of the question, however, is much more difficult to answer. The solution has to be sought 'outside' the poem I since Gosudarstvennogo . . . kamnja simply resists any meaningful integration within the IFR of the poem.

Indeed, to justify the entire metaphorical expression we must anchor the poem in its proper contemporary setting. (This is the same procedure I followed with respect to the death-mask fragment in "Zakutav.."). The historical background functions as the frame which gives (more) sense to the metapho2; in question, while at the same time it metaphorizes the remainder of the first stanza and the entire second stanza (all the so-called literal or metaphorically unmarked phrases). Like "Zakutav...", the whole poem may thus rightly be regarded as one extensive metaphor consisting of a string of hierarchically arranged (micro)metaphors with practically all the proper terms (tenors, compa- r&s) left out. Most of these proper terms, however, can be identified with greater or lesser preciseness through a careful inspection of Mandel'gtam's other texts. (For details, see the Appendix in Zeeman 1985).

I can use the same arqument concerning "Cholodno roze v snequ". The many formal (micro)metaphors in this poem acquire their full and proper meaning only when we start analyzing the text-in-its-situation. A case in point is the metaphor in line 8: Ves’ vozduch vypiZa ogromnaja gora. One may appreciate this metaphor as an apt and powerful image typifying a specific mountain scenery. Indeed, the metaphor makes us see, and sense, certain phenomena (a mountain towering up over a valley, town, or plateau; the thin-air atmo- sphere) in a new and surprising way. But the date at which the poem was written, together with certain signals in the text itself, should alert us to another, far more interesting, second-order referent (cornpar - the cultural and political climate in Armenia under Stalin - which in turn comes now to :be seen in a strikingly new light. Likewise, the trout-policemen


metaphor (11.4-6) has a certain value of its own in so far as it is a refreshing way of looking anew at these predators. But the point of the metaphor can, and must, be stretched by adding the third term of the comparison: say, Soviet authorities (VLAST'). On the other hand, a literal line like Vytas'c'il gornyj rybak raspisnye Zazurnye sani acquires definite metaphorical proportions under pressure of the deeper or allegorical contents of the stanza and intertextual relations (e.g., raspisn e . . . sani echoes the first paragraph of chapter 8 of " 8 etvertaja proza").

The above examples have demonstrated that extratextual circumstances surrounding a poem can provide an additional frame of reference and, as constituent parts of such a frame, an additional series of compa- rss that either create metaphor - in case of literal or "metaphorically unmarked" words - or charge existing "metaphorically marked" words with extra metaphorical dimensions (Three-Term Metaphors).27

Naturally, the process of metaphorization described here need not be set in motion, and/or be determined, by extra-literary conditions, that is, by the pragmatics of situation. In the triptych "Stichi o russkoj poszii" (1932) it is both the title and the subject- matter of the first poem "Sjad' Derzavin, razvalisja" that force the reader to draw an extensive comparison between a thunderstorm and Russian poetry. In "cerno- zem" (19351, our intertextual acquaintance with the poet plays a decisive role in that it alerts us to the relation between black earth and poetry and/or poetic freedom (cf. Vremja Vspachano plugom, i roza zemleju byZa from "Sestry - tjaEest' i neznost' . ..'. 1920; I tichaja rabota serebrit 1 ZeZeznyj plug i stichotvor- ca goZos from "Kak zenstvennoe serebro gorit...", 1937; "Poszija - plug, vzryvajuSEij vremja tak, Zto glubin- nye sloi vremeni, ego Eernozem okazyvajutsja sverchu" from "Slovo i kul'tura", 1922).

In this section I have tried to show that Hrushov- ski's criterion that metaphor exists only if two (or three) domains (frs) exist vividZy in a tsxt is somewhat vague and needlessly restrictive. For what exactly does 'vividly in a text' mean? As we have seen, at times only one significant word in a text may be enough to cerve as an index of a relevant frame of reference. At times the context - whether extratextual, intertextual, or both - provides the material for such a frame. Moreover, Hrushovski's own stress on the frame of reference as the main concept to describe metaphors demon- strates the deficiency of his criterion. For an fr, by its very nature, can be said to exist on account of,

336 Peter Zeeman

and through, a reader's supplementing activities of projecting the indexical data of an internal frame upon inter- and extratextual frames of reference, And, as is well known, such activities frequently require but a minimum of textual information to get going. In- deed, sometimes one word will be enough.

I therefore believe that an fr's textual presentation, in the sense of it being expressed by words in the text, should not be used as a discriminating criterion of metaphor. Using it would mean the exclusion of phenonema discussed in the preceding pages which I take to be essentially metaphorical in their mechanism and effects. It might even lead us back to the miscon- ception implicit in an entire scholarly tradition in the study of metaphor, that metaphor were a pureZy Zin- guistic phenomenon "that deals only with the addition, deletion, and substitution of semantic features 'among words" instead of "with analogical relationships between contexts" (Cureton 1983:339),

Is there no difference, then, between metaphor in which both terms (domains, frs) are explicitly stated and metaphor in which one term is not expressed "in so many words"? In principle no, in practice yes. What really counts is whether the process involved can be called metaphorical, which means that there must be a collision of two or more logically remote frames which makes sense. As to meeting this condition, the degree in which the frs are verbalized in the text (if this can be measured at all) is, in my view, of minor importance. On the other hand, if one fr is for the greater part implicit, the practical consequences for the interpreter may be considerable and should not be underestimated. Indeed, the deciphering task (see p. 3271, that is, the extra step needed to identify the terms participating in the metaphor both on a global and on a micro scale, is likely to be more important and difficult. Moreover, the results of this activity, to which Tanya Reinhart (1976) refers as "focus-interpretation", must at all times be accounted for by solid arguments. NOW it is true that a demand for 'hard evidence' might also be addressed to the interpreter of literal and explicit metaphorical statements, but the point is that impzicit metaphor throws this into sharp relief by doubling the chance of going astray.

5. CONCLUSIONS

In so far as giving concreteness to an 'abstract' subject and bringing it home to the reader is one of


the intended (sidejeffects of a poet's use of metaphor,*' Mandel'stam is no exception to the rule, a point each may check for him- or herself by inspecting the examples discussed above as well as small-scale metaphorical *' constructions such as:

B neTep6ypre WiTb - CJIOBHO CnaTb B rpoby.

(1931)

me Ha IlJIeWi KMAaeTCR BeK-BOJlKOAaB

Ho He BOJIK R no K~OBH CBoee,

(1931)

YX A0 YerO IlIepOXOBaTO BpeMR,

A Bee-TaKM n1o6~11a 3a XBOCT JIOBMTb:

BeAb B 6ere CO6CTBeHHOM OH0 He BIIHOBaTO,

Aa, KWeTCH, ZIyTb-IIyTb XyJlHKOBaTO.

. . .

II ro~op~ c 3noxom, HO pa3se

Aylua y Hefi nenbKoBaR M pa3se

OHa y HaC llOCTbIAH0 llpHXWJIaCb,

KaK cMop~eHnbdi 3BepeK B TU6eTCKOM xpaMe, -

nOYemeTCR M B lJMHKOByM BaHHy -

M3o6pa3u ege HaM, Mapb ?iBaHHa!

(1931) TbI - BpeMR, He3aKOHHO... KaK Ma.nbwiuIKa,

3a B3pOCJIhIMM B MOpll&HH?iCTy50 BOA)',

II, Ka)KeTCR, B rpsgyuee BxOHcy

ki, Ka2CBTCR, ero R ne yummy.

(1931) &IaCTb OTBpaTHTeJlbHa, KaK PyKll 6paAo6pesi.

(1933) KaK 3eMJno rAe-HPi6yAb He6ecHblfi KaMeHb ~YAWT, -

ylla.Jl OIELJIbHbl~ CTMX, He 3HaiQlQHii OTlJa;

(1937) . . . . . . . . . II CTOJIeTbR

OKpmaIOT Mez4 or*eM. (1937)

In these and similar constructions, Mandel'stam's much praised talent for concrete, precise and concise re- presentation3' came in very useful. Since this talent dates back to his earliest Acmeist years, it is no wonder that many metaphors in the early poetry and in the poems of the 1920s are characterized by the same sort of 'tangibility' and 'visibility':

Ha cTeKna BerIHocTn yHte aersI0 i-'fOe AblXaHHe, MOe TeILJIO.

(1909)

338 Peter Zeeman

qyJ&OBMuJHa, KaK 6poHeHoceq B RoKe, POCCHR OTmIXaeT TRX(e.JIO.

(1913)

Y BerIHOCTU BOpyeT BCRKM%, A BegHocTb - KaK MOPCKOG necoK: OH ycbInaeTcR c TeJlem - He xBaTxT Ha Mew-m porox,

(1913)

II Mem cpe3aeT Bpem, KaK CKOCPLJIO T~ofi na6nyn.

(1922)

To this list we can add the elaborate vek-zver' analogy in "Vek" (1923) and "1 janvarja 1924", of which the 1931 coinage vek-volkodav is a clear echo. Compare also I svoe nachodit mesto 1 Cerstvyj pasynok vekov - 1 Usychajdbij dovesok 1 PreZfde vynutych chlebov (1922) with Ja tramvajnaja vi.!?enka stragnoj pory (1931), both characterizing the poet's position in society.

As we have seen, Mandel'stam also frequently uses metaphorical constructions which consist of two (or more) concrete terms. In this connection Zirmunskij (1928:312) noted:

B MeTa&OpaX U CpaBHeHkIRx MaHQeJIbIlJTaM BCerAa COIIOCTaB- meT ~eTm.ie u rpa@usecIcue npeAcTameHm, came oTAa- nembIe gpyr OT apyra, ~aHTacTmecKu-Heomi~aHHbIe, OT- Hocsi:lquecn K o6nacTm ~IJTMFI, IS0 CyqeCTBy CBOeMy pas- Aenb*m, u, KaK Bcerga, OH AenaeT 3~0 Bee B Toti xe c~poro 3aKomeHHofi 3mrpamaTusecKofi @opMe.

And again I see no essential difference between the early and later poetry. Compare, for instance, Obiz'en- no uchodjat na choZmy . . . Staruchi-ovcy (1915) with the three-term metaphor in "FaStonHEik" (especially the people-herd comparison), or Dikoj kodkoj gorbitsja sto- Zica (1920) with Dikaja kogka - armjanskaja red' - 1 Mudit menja i carapaet who (1930), or, referring to French cathedrals, Zes, [ Dus’i

Stichi jni j Zabirint, nepostisimy j goti6eskoj

with Ja vide2 ozero, stojaSdee otvesno (l.937:1912) rassudo&zaja propast ’

. If there is a change in Mandel'Htam's usage of meta-

phor over the years, it is a growing attention to metaphors of the extended type31 which, in addition, are often implicit. Especially the latter development (im- plicitness) would seem to be in line with the increased use of irony in the poetry of the 1930s and, more generally, with a tendency towards a more veiled manner of

Metaphorical Language in MandeZ'gtam 339

saying things, a manner which, in so far as taboo themes axe concerned, might be called Aesopian.

University of Amsterdam

NOTES

1. Moreover, Mandel'Etam himself has written: "Ibo dlja nagego soznanija (a gde vzjat' drugoe?) tol'ko Perez metaforu raskry- vaetsja materija, ibo net bytija vne sravnenija, ibo samo by- tie est' sravnenie" (1969:190).

2. Brooke-Rose (1958:29-33) makes a similar point regarding Eng- lish poetry.

3. Weststeijn (1983:93-94) has observed that, prior to Richards, it was Fontanier who already defined metaphor as being one idea presented undex the sign of another which is more striking or better known.

4. Incidentally, in his attempt to distinguish metaphor from metonymy, Bredin (~984:lOl) hits the nail on the head in as- serting that "Metaphor creates a knowledge of the relation between its objects; metonymy presupposes that knowledge".

5. This point is continuously emphasized by Weststeijn (1983: ch.3).

6. Cf. also Brooks (1958:24) and Aristotle (1946:1459a). 7. As I see it, "semantic field" somewhat resembles the notions

of "implicative complex", "implication-complex" introduced by Black (1979).

8. Cf. e.g. Abraham (1975), Black (1979)‘ Butler (19841, Eco (1983), Hedges (1983), Hrushovski (1984a), Leondar (19751, Mendelson (1982), Weststeijn (1983) f Weinrich (1975).

9. See Abraham (19751, Black (1962;1979), Cureton (19831, Eco (1983), Weststeijn (1983).

10. Also compare Hrushovski's "dependent on interpretations" with ECO'S "The success of a metaphor is a function of the socio- cultural format of the interpreting subject's encyclopedia" (1983:254). The role of the interpreter of a metaphor is given emphasis by Cohen (1979) who sees the act of metaphor as "the achievement of intimacy" between the "maker and the apprecia- tor of a metaphor".

11. For further details on the concept of fr, see Hrushovski (1982; 1984a; 1984b).

12. See Levin (1977). 13. Cf. Otegov: T[kan'].rasskaza.

340 Peter Zeeman

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

For details on the concepts of "ungrannnaticality", "significance", and the relation between the two, see Riffaterre (1978).

Geometrically, the textual presentation of both frs would look like this:

CD

frl fr2

while the metaphorical relationship is coveredby the following familiar figure:

0

fr2 frl

Abrams (1981:64) speaks of implicit metaphor, the sole figure of analogy which, according to Genette (cf. his scheme of analogy figures), has the right to be called metaphor: "Iden- tification non motivde sans cornpar&" (1972:30). I disagree with Brooke-Rose's low opinion of Simple Replace- ment, specifically, that it is "on the whole restricted to the banal, the over-familiar, or to metaphors which are so close in meaning to the proper term that the guessing is hardly conscious" (1958:26). Her judgement can hardly apply to, say, Mandel'gtam's honeycomb-churches metaphor. Of course, I do agree with her when she says "that they depend much more on the general context than do other types of noun metaphors" (1958:26).

Taken together, the procedures constitute precisely the meth- od Tanya Reinhart (1976) recommends for metaphorical construal. Thus, the first line contains three distinct figures of analogy: (I) mouth-rose (simile in frl),

(2) mountain-rose (simile in fr2), (3) mouth (like a rose)-mountain (metaphor).

Cf. N.Mandel'gtam (1970:245): "gto bylo iivoe ljubopytstvo k malen'koj strane, foxpostu christianstva na Vostoke, ustojav- 6ej v teEenie vekov protiv natiska magometanstva. Byt' moiet, v Spochu krizisa christianskogo soznanija u nas Armenija pri- vlekla O.M. Btoj svoej stojkost'ju". A striking parallel with what is happening today in Afghanis- tan. "To the thinking soul images serve as if they were the contents of perception... That is why the soul never thinks without an image" (Aristotle as quoted in Mitchell 1984:533). An influential critic like Eliot (1975:209-210) takes visual imagery for granted, as shows his essay on Dante.


23. Other examples of metaphor which force the reader to visual- ize the common aspect(s) involved are the three-term metaphors in "Fa~tonS~ik" and "Bessonnica...".

24. These are Hester's "bound" images as opposed to what Ricoeur (1979:148) aptly calls "wild" images, i.e. images which "in- terrupt reading and distort or divert it" and therefore "are properly extrinsic to the fabric of sense".

25. For further details on the notion of IFR, see Hrushovski (1984b:235-243).

26. Actually it is the interpreting reader who does the 'meta- phorizing'.

27. Some might want to argue that poems like "Zakutav...", "0 porfirnye...", "Cholodno raze...", and "Stichi o russkoj poezii" should be seen as illustrative of the observation Eco (1983: 252) made: There are cases in which from one or more metaphors the interpreter is led to an allegorical reading, or to a symbolic interpretation, where the boundaries between metaphor, allegory and symbol can be very imprecise". The difficult question of how to differentiate between allegory, symbol and extended metaphor, interesting though it may be, cannot be discussed within the limited scope of the present article. I trust that I have already made it plain why the afore-mentioned poems should be thought of as (extended) metaphors.

28. Cf. Hester (1972:115): "Quite often the motive for using a metaphor instead of a concrete type of description is that only through the metaphor, or perhaps most economically through the metaphor, can the abstract subject be given concreteness". Hrushovski (1984a:l8) says: "Metaphors are also 'concrete universals', in that they present concrete, usually sensuous elements which represent something beyond them". And Mooij (1975:266): “I think... of metaphors used to illustrate some general or abstract view and bring it home to the reader. Metaphors often have such a function. Even though they are not in the least NECESSARILY directed to 'making' an abstract tenor more concrete it cannot be denied that they are as a matter of fact often so directed".

29. In the list I have included similes, since I believe they be- have like metaphors in many relevant respects.

30. zirmunskij lays much stress on this particular trait of the poet's style: "Masterstvo Mandel'gtama osobenno jarko skazy- vaetsja v tornych i kratkich, kak by SpigrammatiEeskich cha- rakteristikach" (1928:329). Cf. also Levin (1978:114-1151, N. Mandel'Etam (1970:280-281;1972:530,609), Segal (1975:107-108), Brown (1973:181,204).

31. The number of extended metaphors in the early period is limited. There are only two cases in which the metaphor can be said to cover the entire poem: "Est' ivolgi v lesach...U (1914) and "Vek" (1923).

32. On irony in Mandel'ztam's later poetry, see Zeeman 1986.

342 Peter Zeeman

33. On the nature of Aesopian language in modern Russian Iitera- ture see Loseff (1984).

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