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Iconicity for an iconoclast

Susan Howe’s critique of representational practices
  • Julian Moyle
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Iconicity in Cognition and across Semiotic Systems
This chapter is in the book Iconicity in Cognition and across Semiotic Systems

Abstract

Susan Howe’s poetry regularly draws attention to its appearance on the page, but the often abstract or iconoclastic nature of her work means that we rarely encounter cases where visual form mimes meaning in an obvious way. In places, though, Howe uses the iconic potential of abstract arrangements of text to target forms of representation that have been associated with the violence of colonization and with social injustice. A self-reflexive anxiety emerges as it becomes difficult to distinguish between the form of what is targeted and the form of the text itself. My study offers a close analysis of two examples: the opening of Secret History of the Dividing Line (1978) and a lyric from Bed Hangings (2001) that is framed by an illustration (by the artist Susan Bee) which helps to reveal the iconicity at work. I go on to relate Howe’s thinking about the nature of the sign – and of the relationship between words and the objects they represent – to Peirce’s ideas.

Abstract

Susan Howe’s poetry regularly draws attention to its appearance on the page, but the often abstract or iconoclastic nature of her work means that we rarely encounter cases where visual form mimes meaning in an obvious way. In places, though, Howe uses the iconic potential of abstract arrangements of text to target forms of representation that have been associated with the violence of colonization and with social injustice. A self-reflexive anxiety emerges as it becomes difficult to distinguish between the form of what is targeted and the form of the text itself. My study offers a close analysis of two examples: the opening of Secret History of the Dividing Line (1978) and a lyric from Bed Hangings (2001) that is framed by an illustration (by the artist Susan Bee) which helps to reveal the iconicity at work. I go on to relate Howe’s thinking about the nature of the sign – and of the relationship between words and the objects they represent – to Peirce’s ideas.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents vii
  3. Preface and acknowledgements ix
  4. Introduction 1
  5. Part I. General framework
  6. The intricate dialectics of iconization and structuration 11
  7. The iconicity ring model for sound symbolism 27
  8. Iconicity as a key epistemic source of change in the self 47
  9. Indexicality and iconization in Mock ing Spanish 63
  10. Part II. Symmetry
  11. Iconicity of symmetries in language and in literature 79
  12. Chiastic iconicity 103
  13. Tonal iconicity and narrative transformation 135
  14. Part III. Visual and intermedial iconicity
  15. Władysław Strzemiński’s theory of vision and Ronald Langacker’s theory of language 155
  16. Iconicity for an iconoclast 173
  17. This is not a pipe 193
  18. Image superimposition in signed language discourse and in motion pictures 213
  19. Part IV. Gesture and sign language
  20. Iconicity in gesture 245
  21. Where frozen signs reclaim iconic ground 265
  22. Recurring iconic mapping patterns within and across verb types in German Sign Language 289
  23. Part V. Onomatopoeia and sound symbolism
  24. Echoes of the past 331
  25. The correlation between meaning and verb formation in Japanese sound-symbolic words 351
  26. The phonosemantics of the Korean monosyllabic ideophone ttak 369
  27. The iconicity of emotive Hijazi non-lexical expressions of disgust 389
  28. Author index 405
  29. Subject index 407
https://doi.org/10.1075/ill.18.09moy

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents vii
  3. Preface and acknowledgements ix
  4. Introduction 1
  5. Part I. General framework
  6. The intricate dialectics of iconization and structuration 11
  7. The iconicity ring model for sound symbolism 27
  8. Iconicity as a key epistemic source of change in the self 47
  9. Indexicality and iconization in Mock ing Spanish 63
  10. Part II. Symmetry
  11. Iconicity of symmetries in language and in literature 79
  12. Chiastic iconicity 103
  13. Tonal iconicity and narrative transformation 135
  14. Part III. Visual and intermedial iconicity
  15. Władysław Strzemiński’s theory of vision and Ronald Langacker’s theory of language 155
  16. Iconicity for an iconoclast 173
  17. This is not a pipe 193
  18. Image superimposition in signed language discourse and in motion pictures 213
  19. Part IV. Gesture and sign language
  20. Iconicity in gesture 245
  21. Where frozen signs reclaim iconic ground 265
  22. Recurring iconic mapping patterns within and across verb types in German Sign Language 289
  23. Part V. Onomatopoeia and sound symbolism
  24. Echoes of the past 331
  25. The correlation between meaning and verb formation in Japanese sound-symbolic words 351
  26. The phonosemantics of the Korean monosyllabic ideophone ttak 369
  27. The iconicity of emotive Hijazi non-lexical expressions of disgust 389
  28. Author index 405
  29. Subject index 407
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