Beborítják a jelek

Krisztián Benyovszky

IN: Partitúra Irodalomtudományi folyóirat, Volume XVII. , Issue 1, 2022, p. 51-66, ISSN 1336-7307

DOI: 10.17846/PA.2022.17.1.51-66

Abstract:

In my study I argue for the interpretation of the book cover as a sign-space. I use Mihály Szívós’s monograph Sign spaces as a theoretical starting point, and with the help of the aspects and concepts it explains, I attempt to isolate and characterise the most important signs and sign-formations that form the basis of the cover’s image and the preliminary understanding of the work. I describe the book cover as a multifunctional, suggestive sign space that possesses both the properties of physical and figurative spatiality. All of the verbal and visual signs that make up the cover refer to the literary work as a denotatum, and most of them are interested not only in communicating data, but also in setting the mood, mobilising prior knowledge and, to varying degrees, pre-interpreting the text.

Keywords: semiotics, book cover, sign-space, paratextuality

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Partitúra is a Hungarian literary journal published in Slovakia twice a year. The first edition was issued in 2006. From 2007 to 2014 its publishers were the Faculty of Central European Studies at The Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra in cooperation with Sambucus Literary Society. Since 2014 the Faculty of Central European Studies at the CPU in Nitra became the sole publisher.

The journal releases peer-reviewed scientific articles, literary studies and art reviews of both Hungarian as well as world literature. It is also a forum for essays on several other arts and intercultural relations. Furthermore, special attention is devoted to the Central European literature and literary studies; the magazine not only publishes the reviews of such studies, but also provides the arena for reflections about them. The journal aims to give an account of the contemporary Hungarian literature of the Hungarian minorities as well as to serve as a cluster for discourses.

As for the structure of the paper, it is usually divided into three main sections. The first part generally deals with the translation of an important foreign abstract literary study. It is followed by the heading of Scientific Studies and the Columns of Critical Analysis. Partitúra regularly publishes thematic abstracts by authors, genres, as well as a literary and artistic phenomenon in focus.