A Defence of the Cliché
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18172/jes.125Abstract
A sure thing is that clichés have a bad reputation. Trying to define the cliché as a linguistic or stylistic category, however, leads to all sorts of difficulties, as we seem to be dealing with “matters as imprecise as the shape and size of a cloud or the beginning and end of a wave”. Following the example of Louis MacNeice who once wrote a “Homage to Clichés”. in this paper I will take the defence of the cliché and show that in the terms of a (Lacanian) problematics of the subject’s enunciation it has its own function and significance.
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