Overview

One of the greatest critical challenges of the 20th century, from its publication in 1898 up to our own time, The Turn of the Screw continues to fascinate readers and scholars alike, by its seemingly inexhaustible semantic richness. This study presents a re-evaluation of the ambiguities and doubts which permeate Henry James's tale, through a process of semiotic transcodification. By way of C.S. Peirce's and D. Pignatari's theories of the sign, it captures and interprets the iconic-symbolic elements interwoven in the narrative, thus offering astonishing new insights into the question of the reality / unreality of the apparitions, the coexistence or not of good and evil in the children, and the credibility of the governess / narrator, among other aspects. By integrating all of them into a semantic structure, it demonstrates how the interpretation of the tale gyrates around the fusion of contradictions, as the turn of the screw synthetizes universal duality / complementarity.

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9780820420172

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Altogether excellent...Professor Renaux uses semiotics to illuminate afresh the enigmas of 'The Turn of the Screw'. Scholars and students alike will be refreshed by her sanity. ( Robert F. Kiernan, Manhattan College) New literary aspects may come out of a work, when not only verbal but also iconic tools are employed in the analysis. This is the case of the semiotic approach of 'The Turn of the Screw', by Sigrid Renaux. (Decio Pignatari, University of Sao Paulo, Brazil)

Author Information

The Author: Sigrid Renaux is a Full Professor of Literatures in English of the Department of Modern Foreign Languages at the Federal University of Parana (Brazil). She received her M.A. and her Ph.D. from the University of Sao Paulo and, as a Fulbright scholar, she did her post-doctoral research at the University of Chicago. She was also awarded a scholarship by The British Council and has recently received the Faculty Enrichment Program award from the Canadian Government. Among other academic activities, Dr. Renaux has also been Vice-Director of the School of Humanities, Letters and Arts, and Coordinator of the M.A. course in English at her university. She has published more than 50 articles in professional journals, mostly on contemporary American and English Literature.

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