This book provides a comprehensive introduction to the work and thought of Umberto Eco - one of the most important writers in Europe today.
Acknowledgement ix
Note on References x
Introduction 1
1 Form, Interpretation and the Open Work 6
On form and interpretation: from Croce to Pareyson 6
Art and rationality 10
The appearance of Opera aperta 15
The poetics of the open work 18
Beyond openness 23
2 A Critical View of Culture: Mass Communications, Politics and the Avant-garde 28
The role of the avant-garde 29
Mass communications and theories of mass culture 37
Television and semiotic guerrilla war 43
Openness and structure 47
3 Introducing the Study of Signs 54
Signals and sense 55
Ambiguity, self-reflexivity and the aesthetic message 64
The critique of iconism 67
Some provisional conclusions on the aesthetic message 69
4 A Theory of Semiotics 76
From La struttura assente to A Theory of Semiotics 76
Communication, code and signification 81
Sign and sign-function 83
Sign production, iconism and the aesthetic message (again) 90
5 Semiotics Bounded and Unbound 100
The boundaries of semiotics 102
The dynamics of semiosis 111
6 Theory and Fiction 120
Readers and worlds Texts 120
7 Secrets, Paranoia and Critical Reading 145
8 Kant, the Platypus and the Horizon 162
Notes 171
Select Bibliography 184
Index 193
