Books in the Advances in Semiotic series

... the greatest contribution to [semiotics] since the pioneering work of C. S. Peirce and Charles Morris."e; -Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism... draws on philosophy, linguistics, sociology, anthropology and aesthetics and refers to a wide range of scholarship... raises many fascinating questions."e; -Language in Society... a major contribution to the field of semiotic studies."e; -Robert Scholes, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism... the most significant text on the subject published in the English language that I know of."e; -Arthur Asa Berger, Journal of CommunicationEco's treatment demonstrates his mastery of the field of semiotics. It focuses on the twin problems of the doctrine of signs-communication and signification-and offers a highly original theory of sign production, including a carefully wrought typology of signs and modes of production.

In this collection of nine essays, Umberto Eco sets forth a dialectic between 'open' and 'closed' texts, between a work of art that actively involves the 'addressee' in its production and one that holds the 'addressee' at bay and seeks to evoke a limited and predetermined response. He investigates the contributions of contemporary semantics to the study of narrative, and connects the modalities of textual interpretation with the problem of possible worlds.