“Never stop crossing the bridge.” Metaphors for literary translation

The paper aims to describe select metaphors used to refer to various aspects of translation, that is, the essence of the process as it is captured in conventional or novel metaphorical expressions, the role of the translator, and the relationship between the original author and the translator. The documentary material for this case study comes from a collection of essays on literary translation; therefore, it reflects the translator’s point of view. The analysis offered in the paper follows the basic tenets of Cognitive Metaphor Theory, presenting diverse metaphorical images that provide a partial understanding of the complex process of translation by highlighting and hiding specific elements. However, by studying the metaphorical entailments of each of the metaphorical mappings we may also demonstrate how some of them obscure reality instead of clarifying it.