| From a notebook for his study on the Nibelungen | Ferdinand de |
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Legend
forms itself from a series of symbols in a manner to be specified.
-These symbols are unconsciously subject to the same variations and laws as any other series of symbols, for example, the symbols which are the words of language. |
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They are all
part of semiology
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As there is no system which establishes
that
a symbol must remain fixed, or must be infinitely variable, it should
probably remain fixed within stated limits.
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which is to say, from the instant
at which
it
becomes immersed in the social mass which at any given moment establishes
its value, its identity can never be fixed.
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| From the instant at which a symbol becomes a symbol, | -
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| Thus the rune Y is a symbol | ||||
| Its IDENTITY seems something so tangible, and almost ridiculous to establish it more securely consists in this: | ||||
| that has the form Y;
that it is read Z; that it is the letter numbered eighth in the alphabet; that it is mystically called zann, at least when it is cited as the first in the word. After a short interval . . . it is the 10th in the alphabet . . . but already here., IT begins to assume a unity which |
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Where is its identity
now? ....any symbol, once in
general circulation - and symbols must exist only because they are in circulation
- is absolutely incapable of defining at any given instant what its identity
will be at
any
subsequent instant
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The terror of discovery | The fascination of the sign | ||
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