The Sense of Form in Literature and Language (Semaphores and Signs) 1st edition by Shapiro, Michael (1998) Hardcover

by Michael Shapiro

The Sense of Form in Literature and Language demonstrates how form in language participates in and determines the meaning of literary texts. This entails seeing verse and prose as a structure, of which the building blocks are primarily linguistic; and taking the form of these building blocks to be part of the content. The Sense of Form in Literature and Language continues the general line of research Michael Shapiro has pioneered, and exemplifies what a Peircean approach can contribute to the cognitive study of language and literature, and to the exploration of the semiotic nature of verbal creativity. Shapiro analyzes representative texts and examples from Russian, English, Romance, Japanese, and Ancient Greek literature. The analyses of verse and of prose fiction are unified by treating language as the only sure repository of meaning. This insightful work offers a wide range of examples from many genres and traditions and a unified approach to literature and language deriving in part from a reliance on the semiotic perspective of Peirce's whole philosophy.

Hardcover

First published June 15, 1998

About the author

Michael Shapiro writes about travel, the performing arts, and environmental issues for magazines and newspapers. A former staff reporter and editor at newspapers in the San Francisco Bay Area, he’s the author of The Creative Spark, a collection of interviews with many of the world’s most creative people, and A Sense of Place, featuring conversations with leading travel writers. His stories appear in National Geographic, AFAR, The Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle and many other publications.