Wow! eBook
Redefining Literary Semiotics
Author(s): Jørgen Dines Johansen (Author, Editor), Christina Ljungberg (Author, Editor), Harri Veivo (Author, Editor)
- Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
- Publication Date: 11 Sept. 2009
- Edition: 1st
- Language: English
- Print length: 255 pages
- ISBN-10: 1443804991
- ISBN-13: 9781443804998
Book Description
This volume marks a shift. For it reveals how literary semiotics at present has moved toward methodological pluralism. The sharp lines of division, especially between the two most dominant approaches, those of C.S. Peirce and Ferdinand de Saussure, have dissolved and a manifest synergy has emerged from the deepening appreciating that the focal concern of literary scholarship is irreducibly heterogeneous. This heterogeneity necessitates a variety of approaches. The significance of literary texts is neither entirely identifiable with authorial intention nor susceptible to empirical verification. Even so, the possibility of shared meaning and mutual understanding, whether or not acknowledged, animates the work of literary scholars. Approaches and theories in which communication and representation are explained, rather than explained away, deserve a fuller hearing than they have received in the recent past. The contributors to this volume highlight the communicative functions of literary texts and, more controversially, the representational possibilities secured by literary production.
Editorial Reviews
Review
‘This is a learned, lucid, and innovative book edited by some of the leading scholars in the field. At once a very useful resource for students and also a major contribution to scholarly thinking, it offers a refreshing new perspective on key issues in literary semiotics and the theoretical debates these issues have sparked. Contributors display a consistent ability to explain clearly complex theoretical concepts while preserving the inherent difficulty of these ideas. The collection is clearly focused but wide-ranging, providing is a stimulating account of the contemporary state of play in one of the most challenging and progressive fields of contemporary literary and cultural scholarship.Redefining Literary Semiotics is the best study of its kind to date in literary semiotics.’– Deborah L. Madsen, University of Geneva
About the Author
Harri Veivo is adjunct professor at the Institute for Art Reasearch, University of Helsinki. He is specialized in literary semiotics and contemporary French literature. Christina Ljungberg is adjunct professor of English and American Literature at the University of Zurich. She has published widely on literary, visual and cognitive semiotics. Jorgen Dines Johansen is professor of general and comparative literature at the University of Southern Denmark. He is one of the leading international scholars in literary semiotics.
