John Irving’s A Widow for One Year and Tod Williams’ The Door in the Floor as ‘(mult-)i-conic’ works of art
-
Christine Schwanecke
Abstract
This article explores the various layers of iconicity in John Irving’s novel A Widow for One Year, which abounds in iconic images, diagrams and metaphors, and Todd Williams’ movie adaptation, The Door in the Floor. Intra-medial and intermedial forms of iconicity are brought into focus, as they weave the complex web of cross-, self- and meta-references out of which the novel’s semantic density emerges, building up the illusion of an enhanced ‘visuality’. The media transfer of the novel to film is also examined: to what extent has the novel’s predominant feature, its ‘(mult-)i-conicity’, been transferred to Williams’ movie? Beyond aesthetic questions, medial idiosyncrasies have required structural and material changes and Williams had to abandon some iconic signs, modify others, or establish new forms of iconicity, i.e. audio-visual ones. Despite the differences, the movie’s web of semantic and structural correspondences has become as dense as the one in Irving’s text.
Abstract
This article explores the various layers of iconicity in John Irving’s novel A Widow for One Year, which abounds in iconic images, diagrams and metaphors, and Todd Williams’ movie adaptation, The Door in the Floor. Intra-medial and intermedial forms of iconicity are brought into focus, as they weave the complex web of cross-, self- and meta-references out of which the novel’s semantic density emerges, building up the illusion of an enhanced ‘visuality’. The media transfer of the novel to film is also examined: to what extent has the novel’s predominant feature, its ‘(mult-)i-conicity’, been transferred to Williams’ movie? Beyond aesthetic questions, medial idiosyncrasies have required structural and material changes and Williams had to abandon some iconic signs, modify others, or establish new forms of iconicity, i.e. audio-visual ones. Despite the differences, the movie’s web of semantic and structural correspondences has become as dense as the one in Irving’s text.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Preface and acknowledgements ix
- Introduction xi
-
Part I. Word forms, word formation, and meaning
- Toward a phonosemantic definition of iconic words 3
- Iconic thinking and the contact-induced transfer of linguistic material 19
- Ezra Pound among the Mawu 39
- Cognitive iconic grounding of reduplication in language 55
- Imagic iconicity in the Chinese language 83
- Words in the mirror 101
-
Part II. General theoretical approaches
- Un mélange genevois 135
- How to put art and brain together 149
- Image, diagram, and metaphor 157
-
Part III. Narrative grammatical structures
- The farmers sowed seeds and hopes 175
- Non-iconic chronology in English narrative texts 191
- A burning world of war 211
-
Part IV. Cognitive poetics
- Aesthetic qualities as structural resemblance 233
- Mental space mapping in classical Chinese poetry 251
- Iconicity in conceptual blending 269
-
Part V. Acoustic and visual iconicity
- Thematized iconicity and iconic devices in the modern novel 291
- Iconicity and intermediality in Charles Simic’s Dime-Store Alchemy 313
- Words, like shells, are signs as well as things 327
- Unveiling creative subplots through the non-traditional application of diagrammatic iconicity 343
-
Part VI. Intermedial iconicity
- The iconic indexicality of photography 355
- Unbinding the text 369
- Argumentative, iconic, and indexical structures in Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin 389
- John Irving’s A Widow for One Year and Tod Williams’ The Door in the Floor as ‘(mult-)i-conic’ works of art 405
- Author index 423
- Subject index 425
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Preface and acknowledgements ix
- Introduction xi
-
Part I. Word forms, word formation, and meaning
- Toward a phonosemantic definition of iconic words 3
- Iconic thinking and the contact-induced transfer of linguistic material 19
- Ezra Pound among the Mawu 39
- Cognitive iconic grounding of reduplication in language 55
- Imagic iconicity in the Chinese language 83
- Words in the mirror 101
-
Part II. General theoretical approaches
- Un mélange genevois 135
- How to put art and brain together 149
- Image, diagram, and metaphor 157
-
Part III. Narrative grammatical structures
- The farmers sowed seeds and hopes 175
- Non-iconic chronology in English narrative texts 191
- A burning world of war 211
-
Part IV. Cognitive poetics
- Aesthetic qualities as structural resemblance 233
- Mental space mapping in classical Chinese poetry 251
- Iconicity in conceptual blending 269
-
Part V. Acoustic and visual iconicity
- Thematized iconicity and iconic devices in the modern novel 291
- Iconicity and intermediality in Charles Simic’s Dime-Store Alchemy 313
- Words, like shells, are signs as well as things 327
- Unveiling creative subplots through the non-traditional application of diagrammatic iconicity 343
-
Part VI. Intermedial iconicity
- The iconic indexicality of photography 355
- Unbinding the text 369
- Argumentative, iconic, and indexical structures in Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin 389
- John Irving’s A Widow for One Year and Tod Williams’ The Door in the Floor as ‘(mult-)i-conic’ works of art 405
- Author index 423
- Subject index 425
