22nd Annual Student Research Conference
Semiotics in Artistic Echoes of Ovid's Acis and Galatea
Grant M. Berry
Prof. Shirley McKamie, Faculty Mentor
Semiotics, the study of signs, permeates all degrees of human existence, but it is in the fine arts that its applications are paradigm. Both poetry and music are artistic forms with exceptional emotive potential, and can be better understood through semiotic applications. To draw parallels between the two, the works analyzed share a common ancestor: Ovid's Metamorphosis Acis and Galatea. La Fábula de Polifemo y Galatea by Luis de Góngora, a popular Spanish Baroque poem, may be examined structurally and metaphorically, utilizing matrix theory applied to the poem's strophes and the development of a metaphoric sign function. Analogously, Acis and Galatea, an opera by G.F. Handel, will be examined through text painting, a technique that relates musical phrases to the words being sung. Ultimately it is possible to reach a conclusion that demonstrates a balancing effect on the arts: poetry and music are equivalent forms of artistic expression.
Keywords: Semiotics, Poetry, Music, Interdisciplinary, Mathematics, Spanish, Text Painting, Metaphor
Topic(s):Interdisciplinary
Mathematics
Music
Presentation Type: Oral Paper
Session: 48-1
Location: OP 2111
Time: 2:45