What does literature say?

Abstract

In this essay, the issue of the relationship between literature, world and expression of thought is discussed. Starting from the notion that literature, due to its special character, “betrays”, to a certain point, the objective possibility of expressing ideas and concepts (without denying that possibility), we propose the idea that the language of art portrays a different characteristic, which may be theorized on basis of the concept of icon elaborated by Charles Sanders Peirce. Without being, at the same time – according to the formulations of this author – symbolic and indicative, such language is open to ambiguity and may, thus, express a plus of sense that is not necessarily conveyed in its formulation or in what is said objectively in it.