DeMan’s ‘metaphor’ functions as a transcoding device, not a narrow trope.

Evidence

Our discussion of his peculiar use of the term metaphor to designate conceptualization in general suggests that what is at work here is a little more complicated than some simple (or appropriately elaborate) rewriting of textual materials in terms of tropology: something that might better characterize the work of Hayden White or Lotman or the mu group (from which DeMan always sought strategically to distance himself). Rather, the larger mediatory use of the notion of metaphor then allows tropology to become attached terminologically to a range of other objects and materials (political, philosophical, literary, psychological, autobiographical) where a certain account of the tropes and their movement then becomes autonomous. Metaphor is thus the crucial locus of what we have called transcoding in DeMan: it is not at first a narrowly tropological concept but rather the place in which the dynamics of the tropes is pronounced to be “the same” as a whole range of phenomena identified by other codes or theoretical discourses in utterly unrelated and unrelatable ways (abstraction is the language we have used here). Metaphor, in DeMan, is therefore itself a metaphorical act and a violent yoking together of distinct and heterogeneous objects. — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 526

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies DeMan’s distinctive use of ‘metaphor’ as a mediatory transcoding term rather than a narrowly tropological concept.
• XREF: The transcoding idea connects to Jameson’s earlier chapters on the postmodern breakdown of metaphors and the collapse of mediatory codes, where he treats the end of conceptual mediation. — connects to: DeMan posits metaphor as the cause rather than opponent of literal illusion — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 505; DeMan’s textual metaphor theory structurally parallels Marx’s value-form dialectic. — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 521; DeMan’s rhetorical promise unifies speech acts with allegory to generate history — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 538 (+1 more)
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: DeMan posits metaphor as the cause rather than opponent of literal illusion — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 505; DeMan’s textual metaphor theory structurally parallels Marx’s value-form dialectic. — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 521; DeMan’s rhetorical promise unifies speech acts with allegory to generate history — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 538 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Deconstructive narrative moves from doubting one metaphor to doubting language itself #complicates (0.74) — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 534