Semiotic Themes

I took this photo in Dublin, Ireland.

Content of material represented through literature, art and music contains the linguistic configurations associated with language in addition to visual and auditory stimuli: 

In literature, content consists of language, represented by words on a page that convey meaning to the audience. 

Artistic content varies from materials, such as paint, rock, metal, fabric, or other physical substances, with the subject matter originating in the human experience. 

Musical compositions include content that incorporates any form of resonance to which the auditory mechanism responds.

For instance, thematic representation of creative expression incorporates the history, language and culture of the artist in relation to individual purpose of expression with an audience. A musical composition contains a specific theme. This theme can then repeat every time a musician performs the piece. However, the theme will elicit variations based on instrumentation, acoustics, and musicians actively attempting to recreate the original sound. 

A new aurally thematic expression results from this interpretation. Likewise, a work of art will receive the eyes of multiple viewers. Each person adapts his/her life experience (historicity) to the interpretation of the rendered artistic theme, thus altering the original thematic construct of the artist. Hence, an artist's theme is in a constant state of evolution, no matter which art form has been presented. (Lakatos 22-23)

Iconic realism in Salvador Dali's Art

Salvador Dali's  Melting Clocks 

(from DuckDuckGo Images)

As you gaze upon the art by Salvador Dali, you will note that he uses iconic realism in most of his surrealistic renderings. He will place a recognizable figure in a position in which this figure is not expected to exist. In his own words, he describes these objects as "...nothing more than the soft, extravagant, solitary, paranoiac-critical Camembert cheese of space and time... Hard or soft, what difference does it make! As long as they tell time accurately..." Through his placement of the figure in this unrealistic setting, he creates a realism that brings awareness of an aspect of culture that needs to be reformed, perhaps, our perception of time and how we use it.  

James Joyce's 'Ulysses,' Winds of War, and Iconic Realism

Winds photo from Google Images

Inhaling and expelling of air exists in James Joyce's Ulysses chapter, Scylla and Charybdis, with the obnoxious expelling of high verbiage between Stephen Daedalus and the other scholars. Here, Joyce employs the use of linguistic empowerment of those who 'have' against those who 'have not'…or very little. Joyce, through Stephen, refers to those who do not understand the human spirit as the ‘vegetable world.’ He decides to stay firmly planted in the present, as Harry Blamires states, “through which all future plunges to the past” (Blamires 77). Here, Joyce reveals an interesting foreshadowing of worldly events with which only the current reader can relate, for within 25 years of his writing of Ulysses, the world will revisit Joyce’s own recent experience with WWI through WWII. 

How does this foreshadowing illustrate iconic realism? Joyce reveals highly intellectual ideas through intelligent characters who have issues communicating with those less intellectual, in other words, those who may view their world with a more common sense approach. Through this juxtaposition, Joyce actually pokes fun at the 'highly educated' as a group of snobs who have trouble relating to the majority of society. Ulysses was written between WWI and WWII, and much miscommunication was occurring in the higher echelons of governments worldwide. Joyce breathes his own consciousness through Bloom’s passages through time. He creates his personal ‘winds of war’ as he journeys through the dissonant aspects of his life between the dates, 1918-1920 and thus presents his own mental and emotional transformation. 

Blamires, Harry, The New Bloomsday Book: A Guide through Ulysses, Routledge, New York: 1997.

Literary Resonance, Revolution, and Iconic Realism in Sydney Owenson's novel, _The Wild Irish Girl_

Photo from insert of the 1888 publication of The Wild Irish Girl by Sydney Owenson

Iconic realism intones throughout Sydney Owenson’s national tale, The Wild Irish Girl, written from a unique and insightful cultural point of view shortly after the British Act of Union 1801.

Sydney Owenson engages in the construction of iconic realism through her interface with the concept of literary harmony elicited from the initial resonance of Irish revolution. She creates characters as iconic representatives of the mind-set existing in her historical reality. They speak in their native Irish Gaeilge in opposition to standard English, leading her audiences to literally hear a recognizable semblance of truth. This truth can then become a basis for future writers to harmonize with the transitioning, historical significance of human consciousness.

Such resonance, which distinguishes between intense reality and strength of the human spirit through iconic realism, echoes within Owenson’s novel. By means of her characters and their circumstances following the British Act of Union 1801, Owenson demonstrates the necessity for humankind to relate to one another on a realistic rather than a symbolic level. 

Arthur Miller's 'The Crucible' and Iconic Realism

http://z.hubpages.com/u/234410_f260.jpg

From my book: 

In Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, characterization takes place within the parameters of a seventeenth century New England village. Yet, the message that Miller is sending to his audience parallels the political ramifications of the anti-communist hearings in 1951 United States, when fear of communism heavily influenced the psychological landscape. He creates a series of events that illustrate iconic realism through his use of lighting, characterization and dialogue. As each member of the town accused of witchcraft is called to trial, the lighting and stage presence illuminates the audience to the author’s intention. Written in 1953, shortly after the anti-communist hearings, known as the House Committee on Un-American Activities,[1] each character could depict some facet of the House Committee’s representation, for actions by the House committee resembled those of the drama’s magistrates. 

 

The setting of the play is a seventeenth century New England village, during a time when actual witch hunts did take place. Miller admits to changing a few names and facts regarding the characters, “This play is not history in the sense in which the word is used by the academic historian… However... the reader will discover here the essential nature of one of the strangest...chapters in human history.”[2] Thus, Miller chooses a tale of human interaction to demonstrate his sincere concern for the cultural future and freedom of speech within the United States and humanity in general.

I wonder... Have some current politicians and media anchors read this play?  Somehow, I think not. 

---

[1] Carr, Robert K. “The Un-American Committee.” The University of Chicago Law Review. 18.3 (Spring, 1951) 598-633.

[2] Miller, Arthur. The Crucible. (New York: Penguin Books, 1976) 2.