Signifying Goethe’s Semiotic Words, Sounds, and Colours in My Aesthetic and Visual World by Hee Sook Lee-Niinioja

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HTTP://DOI.ORG/10.33234/SSR.18.3

 

Prelude 

Semiotics explains the process of encoding and decoding. Decoding interprets and evaluates the meaning of relevant signs. Signs are systems of related conventions for correlating signifier and signified in specific domains. Saussure (1959) claims that “a sign is both a sound-image and a concept,” and divides it into the signifier (sound-image) and the signified (concept). The relationship between these two is arbitrary. In this context, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe is a Signifier to establish part of my cultural identity.

The term “aesthetic” has been a contributor to my moral and spiritual life. I have been seeking words, sounds and colours with passion and in meditation through Goethe. He has all the qualities I am looking for. First, his words (literature) enable me to establish my aesthetic life and visual communication. Second, his sounds (music) encourage me to visualize these selected words. Third, his colours (art) complete my selected words and sounds. But, they cannot affect me if passion and meditation have no place.

Numerous people supported me. (Words/literature) Wordsworth, Hardy, Heine, Hesse, Mann, Tolstoy, Hemingway. (Sounds/music) Beethoven, Mozart, Elgar, Bruch, Rachmaninoff, Bach. (Colours/art) Gogh, Monet, Matisse, Munch, Nolde, Kandinsky. Interestingly, many of them learned from Goethe consciously or unconsciously. That is my other argument for turning back to him. Then, where can I find passion and meditation? It is a cathedral with its noble Gothic shape and its blue stained glass where the Divine Light blesses me with purity, tranquillity, translucence and splendour. There, I am ready to face Goethe.

Keywords: Goethe, The Sorrows of young Werther, Words-Sounds-Colours, Semiotic Signifier, Cathedral