ABSTRACT

Culture is a network of languages serving to express and understand human experience: it is that symbolic network without which human beings cannot live their lives.1 The languages of culture are many. The symbolic network through which we interact both with experience and with other human beings is a complex set of languages. This colourful patchwork of languages includes the visual arts, music, dancing, poetry, theatre, philosophy, religion, scientific discourse and many other forms of expression, including the novel.