“No Innocent Words”: Nachman Blumental’s Metaphorology Project and the Cultural History of the Holocaust

ABSTRACT Nachman Blumental (1902–1983) belongs to a group of early Holocaust historians whose work is being rediscovered by contemporary scholars. Especially noteworthy is Blumental's work on the language of Holocaust victims and perpetrators. This article explores the connection between this work and Blumental's prewar studies in the field of Polish and Yiddish literary theory, focusing on his project of metaphorology, a comprehensive study of metaphor. The essay explores the place of Blumental's interwar project of metaphorology at the intersection of Polish and Yiddish scholarship at a time of rising nationalism in Poland, and investigates the way in which negotiations between the Polish and Jewish contexts shaped the project. It makes a case for the significance of the Eastern European literary theory to the contemporary cultural history of the Holocaust, and the importance of including Yiddish works into the broader history of modern literary theory in Eastern Europe.