How Does a Convention Mean? A Semiotic Reading of Agnon's Bilingual Key-Irony in A Guest for the Night
The subject of this study is the semiosis of the ironic message of Agnon's A Guest for the Night (1939). The role played by the key-motif in structuring the ironic symbolism of the novel has long been recognized; the key has been related to such central issues as truth vs. deception, authentici...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Print Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
College
1985
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| In: |
Hebrew Union College annual / Jewish Institute of Religion
Year: 1985, Volume: 56, Pages: 251-269 |
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
ʿAgnon, Shemuʾel Yosef 1888-1970
/ Irony
/ Key (Motif)
/ Judaism
/ Identity
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| IxTheo Classification: | BH Judaism |
| Parallel Edition: | Electronic
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| Summary: | The subject of this study is the semiosis of the ironic message of Agnon's A Guest for the Night (1939). The role played by the key-motif in structuring the ironic symbolism of the novel has long been recognized; the key has been related to such central issues as truth vs. deception, authenticity vs. substitution, and continuance vs. annihilation. The fact that all these issues are so clearly antithetic poses an intriguing question: How is it possible for a single signifier, the word mafte'aḥ, 'key,' to convey the contrariness inherent in its paired signifieds? This question grows especially troublesome when we consider the fact that the universally positivized symbolism of the key as a literary convention is coupled in Hebrew with the semantic transparency of the language (the derivative meaning of mafte'aḥ being an *opener). Our study aims, therefore, at unravelling the full meaning of Agnon's irony via the analysis of his 'semiotic design'. It illustrates the ways in which the author de-automatizes cultural conventions (on the levels of semantics, myth, and psychological archetypes), thereby compelling them to generate meanings that are contradictory to their "original" (or expected) ones. The outcome of such a reading is a reinterpretation, not only of Agnon's self-image as a novelist, but mainly of his position on issues still crucial to contemporary Jewish identity (e.g., Zionism vs. Diaspora, Hebrew vs. Yiddish). |
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| ISSN: | 0360-9049 |
| Contains: | In: Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Hebrew Union College annual / Jewish Institute of Religion
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