Temporality and Trope: A Theoretical Precursion toward the Question of Allusion as Metaphor

If we begin with Fredric Jameson's summation that High Modernism concerns itself with temporality, while postmodernism concerns itself with space, how do we trace the exchange of the object of concern? Moreover, did philosophical preoccupations precipitate this supplantation of questions of time by those of space? To attempt to answer this question, we examine two distinct areas of critical theory, cultural theory and deconstruction, as presented within the oeuvres of Jameson and Jacques Derrida, respectively. The question of temporality leads herein to the philosophy of Martin Heidegger, and a critique of the variations on Heidegger's conceptualizations of temporality created by Jameson and Derrida, and the role of those variations within the broader pursuit of critical theory. Ultimately, this dissertation functions as preparation for an examination of the moment at which, we preliminarily posit, the focus of literary studies transfers from time to space: Late Modernism. While Jameson does not forward this argument, we rely on his nomenclature and distinction.