The article provides an overview of the main theoretical and methodological premises of discursive poetics and indicates the key role of metaphor in this analytical and interpretive frame. The topic is delivered on the basis of a long-term research of Árpad Kovács who proposed an original integrative analysis (from sign to genre particulares) when referring to the classic texts of Russian, Hungarian and Western European literature. He is also known as the founder of the Budapest school of

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... sive poetics. In contrast to the range of linguistic, philosophical and aesthetic definitions of metaphor, Kovács complements and develops the poetical tradition of metaphor studies and demonstrates the multidimensional phenomenon of metaphor by analyzing and interpreting literary texts. The metaphor in Kovács's discursive poetics demonstrates the organic connection between poetics and the existential sphere of life experience. The article gives a set of concepts such as "intonation metaphor", "existential metaphor", "metaphorical digression", which were introduced or reinterpreted by Kovács.