كليدواژه :
نشانهشناسي , مطالعات فرهنگي , زبانشناسي ساختارگرا , رمزگان , تصوير جلد كتابهاي نقد و نظريۀ ادبي
چكيده لاتين :
According to semiotic approaches, we live in a world of different sign systems. In this world, communication is primarily the task of "language" but is not limited to verbal methods and can include non-verbal methods. Images as social and cultural phenomena are among the sign systems that non-verbally communicate between human beings. In fact, with the prevalence of visual productions in modern times, part of the task of communication between humans has been assigned to images. The cover image of books is part of a system of visual cues that sometimes need to be examined in order to understand their secondary meanings through a process called "critique": "Criticism means the search for signs in their secondary meaning: pastime or Activity within the signs or about them ”(Culler, 2011: 10).
Subsequent image (public) and personal image (exclusive)
The cover images of literary criticism and theory books can be divided into two groups: 1) Images that follow a similar pattern and according to the publisher's idea and taste as a link in a chain of authored and translated works in are considered ; and 2) images that do not follow a certain pattern and are made by the publisher or cover designer, depending on the title and subject of the book. These images are instances of "text" and are composed of signs that can be deciphered to understand them correctly. In this article, using descriptive-analytical method and using library sources, four cases of the cover image of the books of this group are studied through semiotics:
The cover image of the Persian translation of the Critical Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guide (Tyson, L.).
The cover image of the Persian translation of the A Reader’s Guide to contemporary Literary Theory (Selden, R & Widdowson, P.).
The cover image of the Critical Theory: An Interdisciplinary Course Book. (Payandeh, H.).
The cover image of the Literary Criticism: Literary Theories and Their Application in Persian Literature. (Taslimi, A.).
There is a key metaphor in the cover image of the Persian translation of the Critical Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guide (Tyson, L.): "Eat"! Eating is not just an activity to satisfy hunger and physical needs. Rather, it is a cultural activity and is very important in individual and social relations. Concerning situational context, it can be assumed that the book on the plate is either a textbook of literary criticism and theory or a work of literary creation. Either way, the concept of "eating" strongly implies the concept of "necessity." That is, just as eating food is necessary to nurture life and strengthen a person's physical strength, so is it necessary to eat a book of literary criticism and theory (= knowledge in literary criticism and theories and the ability to apply them in the text).
The original image in association with the cover of the Persian translation of the A Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory (Selden, R & Widdowson, P.) entitled "The Castel of the Pyrenees", one of the paintings of René Magritte (1967-1898), surrealist painter is Belgian. This image, which was kept in the Jerusalem Museum, is a surrealist work. One of the fundamental differences between literary criticism of earlier periods and modern literary criticism is that in literary criticism of earlier periods the literary work has only one meaning while in modern literary criticism, the literary text has multiple meanings. So what better image than a surrealistic image that is highly exposed to different readings can be effective in creating this similarity?
In the cover image of the Critical Theory: An Interdisciplinary Course Book. (Payandeh Payende, H.), the books stacked on top of each other and the lantern on top of them is a metaphor for the "lighthouse". On other hand, the body of lighthouses is usually two colors, and it seems that it is made of two layers of materials of different colors (for example, black and white), which are placed one on top of the other. This type of painting is to make the lighthouses visible from the sea to the missing. It can be assumed that each of these stacked books is about a theoretical approach to literary criticism: one represents formalist critique; one is a psychoanalytic critique and one is sociological, poststructuralist and so on. These approaches to literary criticism collectively imply a beacon that is supposed to guide the wanderers across the sea of text and the perplexed to grasp the meanings of the text and bring them to a safe shore to escape this confusion.
The cover image of Literary Criticism: Literary Theories and Their Application in Persian Literature, written by Ali Taslimi, implies the same meaning, which is basically open to theoretical critique. The work of the "autobiographer" is to write, and the inclusion of its image on the cover of the book suggests that literary criticism is theoretical and, consequently, the book of literary criticism which introduces the approaches of such critique, believing in the unwrittenness of the text. In modern theories of literary criticism, autobiography allows the reader to construct his or her own personal meaning and rewrite the text as he or she wishes (albeit with requirements).
In conclusion, these images represent a new definition that has emerged from literary criticism: reading the text based on interdisciplinary theories to understand their secondary meanings.
