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Abstract:

The article compares various opinions of Russian avant-garde artists on the phenomenon of metaphorization. The main theses for understanding this phenomenon at the level of “theoretical” discourse are highlighted: the avant-garde artists refer to metaphor as a “stilt” and perceive it as an instrument that is attached to the “body” of a text from the outside, limiting the organic existence of words within the text and killing it. In addition, by referring to avantgarde metatext, the status of the word as a “natural” component of the text has been established: the independent word is described as an organism capable of vital activity and creativity, as well as the creation of myths. By comparing these positions, it has been possible to identify the antinomy “metaphor/word”, which has not previously been explored in studies on avant-garde metaphors. In this antinomy, the metaphor is characterized by its mortality, while the word is seen as a vital phenomenon. However, at the level of poetic discourse, there is a mixture and displacement of the components of this antinomy: 1) to reveal the idea of the self-value of the word, the avant-garde uses the mechanism of metaphorization, so the opposition between the “living” word and the “dead” metaphor is erased, as they are structurally connected within the poetic text, 2) the list of avant-garde metaphors includes examples of the word being associated with both vital and mortal components, which blurs the concept of the vitality of the word and creates an additional zone of antinomy within the semantic field of this component. The correlation and opposition of all these positions also testify to the internal systemic antinomy of the conceptual space and artistic practice of the Russian avant-garde.