Abstract
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Theory of Colors (Zur Farbenlehre, 1810) and Jakob von Uexkull's publications, such as Theoretical Biology (Theoretische Biologie, 1920) and his A Foray into the Worlds of Animals and Humans (Streifzuge durch die Umwelten von Tieren und Menschen, Uexkull and Kriszat, 1934, tr. 2010), undertake key semiosic explorations avant la lettre. Research into these scientific writings, which significantly also draw on the Humanities, has paid little or no attention to questions of semiosic saliency and linguistic involutions. In contradistinction to received research particularly on Uexkull, the present considerations draw on literarilly and artistically inflected vantage points and methods rather than on merely scientifically defined analyses. In its concerns with transmissions and metamorphoses of light, optic semiosis in Goethe and Uexkull –— with some reference to the emblematic modernist Georg Trakl and the Beat postmodernist Lawrence Ferlinghetti — occurs at and beyond limits of language and involves extracategorical perception as well as metaphoric elaboration. In the course of Uexkull's considerations on the semiosic workings of light, such as in Theoretical Biology (1920, tr. 1926), the concept of scaffolding (Gerust) appears. In particular, the present article reflects on semiosic turns from sunlight to organismic perception, namely the zone of emergence in which senses begin to come alive before coordinates of scaffolding are in place.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.sal.0.26.12425
Highlights
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) is widely known for his literary writings, his scientific work remains persistently noted as well
Transformations of light in its extrahuman agency appear in various forms, including those of poetry and art
The questions that emerge in the following considerations engage both Science and the Humanities in ways that precede and supersede particularized domains of knowledge
Summary
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) is widely known for his literary writings, his scientific work remains persistently noted as well. Among his many productive readers was Jakob von Uexküll (1864–1944) whose path-breaking biosemiotic explorations, among them Theoretical Biology (Theoretische Biologie, 1920) and A Foray into the Worlds of Animals and Humans (Streifzüge durch die Umwelten von Tieren und Menschen, Uexküll and Kriszat, 1934) show a strong kinship to Goethe’s reflections such as in On Color (Zur Farbenlehre, 1810). Semiotic and literary analysis is used for the interpretation of scientific, poetic, and scientifico-poetic texts, with a strong emphasis on specific linguistic formulations, including their metaphoricity and translational renderings. Goethe’s style and linguistic expression as well as Uexküll’s imaginative presentations of his biological research appear in hitherto unexplored configurations
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