PAUL RICOEUR'S METAPHOROLOGY: A RETURN TO METAPHOR AND IMAGINATION IN LITERARY THEORY

A return to the studies on metaphor has been observed, especially in the French and German languages - Paul Ricoeur (1913-2005), Hans Blumenberg (1920-1996), Anselm Haverkamp (1943-), Katrin Kohl (1956-) are some of the main exponents. This area has already configured a whole field of studies, even receiving its own denomination in these languages. In this paper, we will go through Ricoeur's theory of metaphorical reference, as developed in his seminal The Rule of the Metaphor (1975) and later works. We suggest three foundational ideas for the development of his metaphorology: the constitutive tension of the metaphorical verb to be; the suspension of the literal reference in favor of an unfolded metaphorical reference; fiction as heuristic of the real. We postulate, finally, that the Ricoeurian understanding of metaphor incorporates an extralinguistic element: the imaginative act. We aim, thus, to contribute to a return to the studies of the metaphor and the imaginary in literary theory, examining, with Ricoeur, how metaphor manages to realize: making real the metaphorical reference.