Abstract
This paper will use several notions of Charles Peirce – his Categories and semiotics – and interweave evolutionary theory, neuroscience, and literary studies in order to connect the disciplines such that the natural sciences may be used as interpretive tools in literary exegesis. Despite the ostensible differences between literary texts and the endeavors of the natural sciences, Peirce’s ideas can put them into conversation. Current evolutionary literary theories like Literary Darwinism require a more solid footing and methodology from which to ground their hypotheses, and this paper will use a philosophical frame to connect the pieces. Peirce and those following his ideas provide the inroads for such a mixed methodology, which will undergird current evolutionary aesthetic practice without needlessly replacing other literary theories. This article will outline Peirce’s schema and a modern reconfiguration thereof, and then will posit that literature (here focusing on a short story) functions as a tension between the iconic, indexical, and symbolic modes of representation. Peirce’s Categories permit reality into the language/text/literature debate, and his notion of the Index can be used as reference to evolved traits in homo sapiens in literary representation. Peirce gives organization, coherence, and cohesion without limiting the interpretational possibility of a literary work.
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- The gap between instruction (plan) and situated action: A challenge to semiotics?
- “What makes a reasoning sound” is the proof of its truth: A reconstruction of Peirce’s semiotics as epistemic logic, and why he did not complete his realistic revolution
- Can museums and luxury brands’ perceptions be compared? How a survey and semiotics help decipher the French collective psyche, relative to cultural and commercial identities
- Peirce, evolutionary aesthetics, and literary meaning: Tension, index, symbol
- On the concept of “sign” in the Hebrew Bible
- The role of séméiotique in François Delsarte’s aesthetics
- The lens of firstness: Shamanic/Aboriginal culture as cosmos-sign
- Translating like a conduit? A sociosemiotic analysis of modality in Chinese government press conference interpreting
- The Peircean order of signification and its encoding system in Chinese landscape painting
- Les valeurs culturelles des cafés contemporains Coréens : Analyse sémiotique des pratiques des consommateurs
- Iconic silence: A semiotic paradox or a semiotic paragon?
- Darth Vader in Ukraine: On the boundary between reality and mythology
- Stance markers in television news presentation: Expressivity of eyebrow flashes in the delivery of news
- Review article/Compte rendu
- La sémiotique des formes de vie, un nouveau tournant ?
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- The gap between instruction (plan) and situated action: A challenge to semiotics?
- “What makes a reasoning sound” is the proof of its truth: A reconstruction of Peirce’s semiotics as epistemic logic, and why he did not complete his realistic revolution
- Can museums and luxury brands’ perceptions be compared? How a survey and semiotics help decipher the French collective psyche, relative to cultural and commercial identities
- Peirce, evolutionary aesthetics, and literary meaning: Tension, index, symbol
- On the concept of “sign” in the Hebrew Bible
- The role of séméiotique in François Delsarte’s aesthetics
- The lens of firstness: Shamanic/Aboriginal culture as cosmos-sign
- Translating like a conduit? A sociosemiotic analysis of modality in Chinese government press conference interpreting
- The Peircean order of signification and its encoding system in Chinese landscape painting
- Les valeurs culturelles des cafés contemporains Coréens : Analyse sémiotique des pratiques des consommateurs
- Iconic silence: A semiotic paradox or a semiotic paragon?
- Darth Vader in Ukraine: On the boundary between reality and mythology
- Stance markers in television news presentation: Expressivity of eyebrow flashes in the delivery of news
- Review article/Compte rendu
- La sémiotique des formes de vie, un nouveau tournant ?