Métaphores et savoir dans l’œuvre de Jean Lemaire de Belges

Lemaire expresses his distrust of rhetorical figures; discursive decorations, metaphors transgress literal truth and do not appear to be figures of knowledge. Unsuited to the expression of truth, they cannot be reduced to an ornamental function; in epideictic discourse, metaphors can have a heuristic function, revealing knowledge about the object of discourse. But it is in deliberative discourses that their use is more interesting.