How do metaphors express a literary studies worldview? An analysis of selected examples of theoretical and critical texts

Abstract

In the article, Katarzyna Lisowska analyzes selected literary studies metaphors (Edward Bal-cerzan’s term) in order to discuss the way in which they represent the academic worldview of the author. The paper focuses on the phrases from the semantic field of corporeality and/or eroticism and their presence in four influential methodologies: structuralism, post-structuralism (as well as the perspectives related to it: deconstruction and deconstructionism), feminist criticism and gender studies discourse. The analyses reveal a significant role of metaphors in expressing and formulating the assumptions of a given methodology, as well as some paradoxes which result from the applica-tion of the presented phrases.