ABSTRACT
Aesthetic auto-reference of the sign turns up at the base of semiosis and its communicative function in modern linguistic theories beginning from the seminal impulses imparted by Russian formalism. Self-referentiality creates a distance from extra-linguistic reality that turns out mysteriously to foster an even more intimate nearness to it by abrogating the need for an external connection. Through its resources of self-differentiation, self-reflection, and self-referentiality, language is able to confer significance on things outside itself. Language is typically seen in its “poetic function” as peculiarly non-representational and, accordingly, as self-reflexive in nature. Such reflexivity proves to be understood best in a theological perspective that reverses certain typical assumptions and orientations of semiotic theory. Concretely, given the poem’s representational vividness, variety, and abundance, the divine vision is realized self-reflexively in Paradiso’s poetic language. Pietro Montani stresses how the auto-reflexivity of art proves capable of signifying in a way short-circuiting reference to a pre-existent external object.
