The interest for metaphor is as old as the reflection about poetry itself. It has become a central poetic subject since the end of the 19th century. The book starts with Nietzsche and develops in eight chapters a large discussion about metaphor, starting with the position of the classical modern time to the historical avantgarde with its critics, the discussion about the lyrics of the fifties and sixties, the so-called concretism and the context of the lyrics in the German Democratic Republic up to now. (Sabine De Knop)