Abstract

The author analyses conceptual metaphors characteristic of one of the literary theories, the theory of intertextuality, employing the methods of cognitive linguistics, i.e. the cognitive theory of metaphor. He claims that the tools of this conception enable one to describe the idea of paradigm-change; in this context author considers the role of metaphor in science. By interpreting synonyms as different realizations of various Idealized Cognitive Models, he shows that the change of metaphors employed in talking about ‘what happens between texts’ leads to evolutionary change from ‘influentology’ to ‘intertextuality’, a transformation closely related to the change of the subject of history of literature. The change of metaphors transforms the focus of literary theory ; its focus moves from the author to the reader, and from the act of creation to the act of reception. Within this perspective writing is no longer a creatio ex nihilo but an innovative re-creation of ‘what has already been read’. This change enables one to capture some paradoxical inversions, like the one which demonstrates how a subsequent texts influence texts prior to them.