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Dimensions of Iconicity
Edited by Angelika Zirker, Matthias Bauer, Olga Fischer and Christina Ljungberg
[Iconicity in Language and Literature 15] 2017
► pp. 99–118

Toward a theory of poetic iconicity

The ontology of semblance

 | Myrifield Institute for Cognition and the Arts
Studies of iconicity in poetry have tended to focus on its linguistic manifestations. In contrast, I ask what is iconicity’s role in poetry? By exploring the ways iconicity is understood in semiotics, linguistics, religion, and popular discourse, and how poetry constitutes the subliminal sensory-emotional feelings we experience through its material forms, I conclude that iconicity is the motivating force for poetry. Its effect is to produce the complex blend that creates a poem as an icon of reality. In this paper, I focus on one aspect of poetic iconicity: the creation of ontological semblance in Brendan Galvin’s poem “Flute”.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Iconicity
  • 3.Iconicity in poetry
  • 4.Semblance in Brendan Galvin’s Flute
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 8 September 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ill.15.06fre
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