Abstract

The chapter treats the much debated question of Heidegger's account of metaphor, and starts by addressing the apparent metaphoricity of his own writing. It notes that 'metaphor' can often be used to domesticate a statement that appears aberrant, rather than asking where this aberrance might lead; to read Heidegger's language as 'metaphorical' thus risks overlooking the thinking taking place. The chapter then situates his critique of metaphor within the questions of the relation between language and body treated in the previous chapter: each dismissal of metaphor takes place in broader discussions of the 'metaphysical' distinction between the sensuous and the nonsensuous. The chapter finishes by looking at two moments in Hölderlin that Heidegger refuses to read as 'metaphors': 'Words like flowers' and the description of language as 'the mouth's flower'. Heidegger identifies, in these moments, growth' into language, through which language comes to 'sound', and tacitly offers a model of poetic language: in its exploration, and performance, of such 'growth', Hölderlin's 'metaphor' is able to 'name' the sounding of language.

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