Nino Kvirikadze
PhD in Philology
Akaki Tsereteli State University.
Visiting Lecturer.
Kutaisi, Georgia
Nino Kvirikadze
PhD in Philology
Akaki Tsereteli State University.
Visiting Lecturer.
Kutaisi, Georgia
On the Semantics of the Title of Thomas Mann’s Story ‘The Path to the Cemetery’
Abstract
The study focuses on the title of Thomas Mann's short story, "The Path to the Cemetery," examining it through a comprehensive analysis of the text. As is known, the title generally plays a substantial role in creating and perceiving the integrated unity of any text. Scientists (Karalashvili, Lukin, Turaeva, Galperin, Mendelssohn, Wenzel, Koopmann, Heftrich, Nieschmidt, etc.) point to the importance of a title in a literary work. The importance of a title for comprehending a literary work has revived my interest in the issue.
The basis for the study is the theory of 'word/verbal series' put forward by V. Vinogradov and later developed by structuralists (V.Toporov, B.Uspenski, T.Tsivyan).
I aim to trace the title as the movement of detail in the entire textual space of the story in the context of word/verbal series, to reveal its semantics in individual fragments in connection with the content of the work and to state its leitmotivity.
When discussing a text as artistic integrity, the title-detail is presented in the form of a moving microelement: i.e. the object of our study is the detail and at the same time a moving part of the dynamic structure of the story, which can move from one series of words into the other and create 'an increment meaning' («приращенный смысл» – Виноградов), that gives broader opportunities to perceive details in a new way and to show its polyfunctional meaning and leitmotivity.
The title detail is noticeable along the entire vertical line of the text from the beginning to the end and when moving from one verbal series to another it decomposes into individual semiotic signs ('highway', 'path', ditch', 'street', 'road', 'ground', etc.), is filled with the additional semantic plane and at the end of the work unifies again in one semiotic sign: 'The Path to the Cemetery' as the Antithesis of Life and Death.
In my view, the named story by Thomas Mann can be discussed in terms of structural and semantic analysis, which does not deny the method of traditional analysis and reveals more and more new meanings at a deeper level of fragmentary-semantic plane proving the regularity of the traditional plane.
Keywords: Thomas Mann, 'The Path to the Cemetery', title, the antithesis of life and death, word/verbal series, leitmotivic interpretation