READING ACTS Theoretical contributions to Literary Practice

Although literature suffers modifications, gaining new momentum and forces, it is and will always be an irreplaceable way for men to get to know themselves and their relationship with the world.

Words, as the primary matter of literature, are a double sign where the signified (meaning) is the mental configuration that constitutes the internal component of the sign and the signifier is the auditory part. Each word, an indivisible sign, is what creates a piece of literature, its verbal message, its imaginary world, and its aesthetic values. Literary words remain open to the reader in its signifying richness, where the linguistic sign carries multiple meanings, rather than one exclusive meaning. A verse can have a literal meaning but that verse is only one part of the whole meaning and that whole meaning is polyvalent because literary language preserves and transcends, at the same time, the literality of words.

That is why we say that literary language is metaphorical by nature, since it describes things in an indirect manner rather than a direct way; it creates a plurality of meanings and its function is, instead of reproducing, representing. Symbolic language allows us to reinvent the objective world; therefore, the representative function is essential in men’s life because it entails a particular character independent of signification. That particular language is what makes the representation of the real world and the dreamt one possible, by the means of literature.