Quasi liber et pictura… Câteva considerații despre interpretarea semnelor în operele Baltagul (Mihail Sadoveanu), Numele trandafirului (Umberto Eco) și Barbarii (Zsigmond Móricz)

In the present study we try to give a comparative analysis of the three works starting from the idea that the narrative structure of the respective works is essentially that of the detective novel. We analyze those methods by which the main hero (Guglielmo) and heroines (Vitoria and the anonymous wife of the shepherd Bodri) of the works manage to identify the killers through the interpretation of signs. Even if there are no direct influences and connections between the three texts regarding the semiotic process, striking analogies can be detected. Given the fact that in the case of linguistic signs the correctness of the interpretation depends only on the authority, we try to demonstrate that in the three works the interpretation of the signs has direct social consequences. Power is legitimized by interpretation, of which only scholars are capable.The excluded (heretics, shepherds) misinterpret the signs because they do not know the language with which they could interpret them correctly.Their language is meaningless, their speech is almost identical to the sounds made by animals. Finally we present the narrator’s attitude towards this world of the excluded

Humanities · Hermeneutics and Narrative Identity · Philosophy