Verbal Image and Image-Idea: A Divide of Semiotic Interpretation of Poetry

Abstract

Abstract: This paper starts from the perspective of semiotic poetics and by introducing the poetic term "verbal image" and re-interpreting the traditional term "yi xiang" (image-idea), it tries to clarify the relationship between language, verbal image and image-idea in poetics. Verbal image and image-idea can be distinguished for the different natures of their symbolic objects. Verbal Image can be divided into physical verbal image and transferred verbal image. The combination of meta-language and connotative signification can illustrate the formation mechanism of verbal image. The difference in language use, aesthetic principle, and the definition of poetry between the modern and the classical poetry appears to be in the different use of verbal image and image-idea, and the paper concludes that the construction of verbal image theory may promote the shift from classical poetics to modern poetics in China.

Key words: poetics, semiotics, verbal image, image-idea, modern poems

Li Xinshi. Verbal Image and Image-Idea: A Divide of Semiotic Interpretation of Poetry[J]. Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art, 2014, 34(3): 195-202.

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