부재의 재현-이미지를 통한 언어의 한계성 극복

Abstract

JangLanguage is a tool by which human beings communicate their ideas and experiences and develop their thought and knowledge. Language functions as a sign by which we can recollect our past, describe our present, and project our future. The Prelude, the autobiography of a poet's imagination, repeatedly makes us meditate on linguistic structure whose fundamental structure is based on metaphorical procedure. In Book 7 of The Prelude, he not only contrasts spoken and written language, but also combines voice with letter. Letters and signs are floating signifiers. In the metaphorical sense, signifiers carry no inherent meanings, but substitutive meanings are determined by social convention. After experiencing the limitation of language, the poet transforms the reality of London into a panoramic picture. Wordsworth does not describe the idea or message, but only offers images in the spacious canvas of London. In the poem, readers are obsessed with images of the crowded London streets. Images that move from signifiers to signifiers rather than from signifiers to signifieds are “outside language” and “nonlinguistic language.” To put it another way, images are less metaphorical yet more literal when they are read in texts. The poem never speaks vocally but speaks only through images.