Iconicity, ‘intersemiotic translation’ and the sonnet in the visual poetry of Avelino De Araújo
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Isabel Vila-Cabanes
Abstract
Although the poetic work of the Brazilian artist Avelino de Araújo has recently attracted the attention of literary criticism, there are only few scholarly studies about the paramount role of iconicity in his non-verbal poetry. It is the main purpose of this paper to examine how iconicity and intersemiotic translation unfold in his visual sonnets. Araújo transforms the canonical poetic form into a postmodern visual experiment, playing with the sonnet’s structural, metrical, and communicative conventions. I open with a brief discussion of the still ambiguous term ‘visual poetry’ in contemporary art and a contextualization of Araújo’s poetry. Then, I explore the role of iconicity and intersemiotic relations between words – the titles – and images in the collection Livro de sonetos (1994). While some poems tackle political, social, and aesthetic topics such as hunger, censorship, segregation and the construction of meaning, other pieces are playful experiments on the sonnet form. Finally, I will look at Araújo’s innovative reinterpretation of the classical sonnet as a successful ‘variation’ of the genre and I briefly refer to the poet’s recent animated sonnets, since, as Greber (2002: 568) notes, “The generic invariance of the sonnet is its variance.”
Abstract
Although the poetic work of the Brazilian artist Avelino de Araújo has recently attracted the attention of literary criticism, there are only few scholarly studies about the paramount role of iconicity in his non-verbal poetry. It is the main purpose of this paper to examine how iconicity and intersemiotic translation unfold in his visual sonnets. Araújo transforms the canonical poetic form into a postmodern visual experiment, playing with the sonnet’s structural, metrical, and communicative conventions. I open with a brief discussion of the still ambiguous term ‘visual poetry’ in contemporary art and a contextualization of Araújo’s poetry. Then, I explore the role of iconicity and intersemiotic relations between words – the titles – and images in the collection Livro de sonetos (1994). While some poems tackle political, social, and aesthetic topics such as hunger, censorship, segregation and the construction of meaning, other pieces are playful experiments on the sonnet form. Finally, I will look at Araújo’s innovative reinterpretation of the classical sonnet as a successful ‘variation’ of the genre and I briefly refer to the poet’s recent animated sonnets, since, as Greber (2002: 568) notes, “The generic invariance of the sonnet is its variance.”
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents vii
- Preface ix
- Introduction xi
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Part I. Phonic dimensions
- The effect of iconicity flash blindness 3
- Iconic treadmill hypothesis 15
- Tracking linguistic primitives 39
- Continuity and change 63
- Iconicity in English literary neologisms 85
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Part II. Cognitive dimensions
- Toward a theory of poetic iconicity 99
- The ocean of surging emotion 119
- Ekphrasis, cognition, and iconicity 135
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Part III. Multimodal dimensions
- Deleuze and the Baroque diagram 153
- Bridging the gap between image and metaphor through cross-modal iconicity 167
- Iconicity, ‘intersemiotic translation’ and the sonnet in the visual poetry of Avelino De Araújo 191
- Reading across the gutter 209
- The role of iconicity in package design 229
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Part IV. Performative dimensions
- Iconicity in Buddhist language and literature 249
- Iconization of sociolinguistic variables 263
- Performative iconicity 287
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Part V. New dimensions of iconicity
- Why notational iconicity is a form of operational iconicity 303
- Iconicity, ambiguity, interpretability 321
- The iconicity of literary analysis 331
- Author index 345
- Subject index 347
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents vii
- Preface ix
- Introduction xi
-
Part I. Phonic dimensions
- The effect of iconicity flash blindness 3
- Iconic treadmill hypothesis 15
- Tracking linguistic primitives 39
- Continuity and change 63
- Iconicity in English literary neologisms 85
-
Part II. Cognitive dimensions
- Toward a theory of poetic iconicity 99
- The ocean of surging emotion 119
- Ekphrasis, cognition, and iconicity 135
-
Part III. Multimodal dimensions
- Deleuze and the Baroque diagram 153
- Bridging the gap between image and metaphor through cross-modal iconicity 167
- Iconicity, ‘intersemiotic translation’ and the sonnet in the visual poetry of Avelino De Araújo 191
- Reading across the gutter 209
- The role of iconicity in package design 229
-
Part IV. Performative dimensions
- Iconicity in Buddhist language and literature 249
- Iconization of sociolinguistic variables 263
- Performative iconicity 287
-
Part V. New dimensions of iconicity
- Why notational iconicity is a form of operational iconicity 303
- Iconicity, ambiguity, interpretability 321
- The iconicity of literary analysis 331
- Author index 345
- Subject index 347
