by Pajari Räsänen
Doctoral diss., 2007
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From http://www.mv.helsinki.fi/home/pprasane/:
The dissertation is divided into two main parts: (1) "Problems With Metaphor? Prolegomena for Reading Otherwise", and (2) "Crossing the Troposphere: Paul Celan's Poetry and Poetics at the Limits of Figurality". The first main part consists of five Prolegomena, each of which can be read separately. The first of these introductory chapters deals with The Second Commandment, or the prohibition of image-making (Bildverbot, as Kant calls it) which is, paradoxically, superceded by another moment, the prohibition of "bowing down and serving them" (i.e. the images that were not to be made in the first place): how can you "bow down and serve" the images, or abstain from doing that, if you obeyed the first moment and did not even make them?
In the centre of the second Prolegomenon is Aristotle's ambivalent relationship with the "natural talent" (euphuia) for using metaphor, and the third Prolegomenon considers Aristotle's heritage among the modern "metaphoricians and metaphysicians", as well as the anti- or countermetaphoricians, such as Paul de Man and Murray Krieger. Prolegomenon IV contains readings of Shakespeare and Emily Dickinson, with a certain critical reference to modern cognitivism. The fifth, concluding Prolegomenon not only serves as a transitory passage to the second main part, namely the essay on Celan, but also contains a central argument with regard to the whole thesis. It is intended not only as a contribution to the understanding of Heidegger's denouncement of the concept of metaphor as a metaphysical concept, but also as an analysis of a certain relation between Heidegger's early lectures on Aristotle and the concept of "being-towards-the end" (Sein zum Ende) in Sein und Zeit, a developent which bears an implicit critical reference to Aristotle's notion of metapherein.
Also many of the chapters in "Part II" can be read as if they were independent articles. For a reader specially interested in Paul Celan's poetry and its "antimetaphoric resistance", I would recommend the chapters entitled "Squalls. A Reading of 'Ein Dröhnen'", and "The Tropic of Circumcision", revolving between the poem "Einem, der vor der Tür stand" and its reading in Jacques Derrida's book Schibboleth - pour Paul Celan.
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