Literary practice on the immediate horizon of the elaboration of semiotics: Peirce's meetings with a few great authors

Abstract

As a consequence of the specific nature of Peirce's philosophical view, the literary text need not be set against semiotic theory; instead, it may be situated in such a way as to prolong the sign and the movement of semiosis. In the first instance, the author investigates the manifestation of the literary object within Peirce's semiotic discourse. Several references to Emerson's famous poem ‘The Sphinx’ are analyzed. This is followed by an analysis of three recurring literary figures: Hamlet, Robinson Crusoe, and Chevalier Dupin. It becomes obvious that Peirce had a significant knowledge of these figures but, more importantly, this leads to recognizing the affinity that exists between such literary projects and Peirce's semeiotic: the latter seemingly feeding off the fictional nature of such literary works in constituting itself as a full-fledged semiotic discourse. In the second part of the article, the author examines two theoretical themes such as they develop within two classical literary works: aspects of Firstness (feelings and potentiality) with regards to the famous ‘Madeleine’ episode in Proust (Du côté de chez Swann) ; and an excess of iconicity such that it inhibits any movement of semiosis in Edgar Allan Poe's ‘The Fall of the House of Usher.’