ABSTRACT
Lyric epitomizes the “poetic function” of language, in which the signifier calls attention to itself as signifier rather than directing attention to something else beyond itself, something that it means, namely, “the signified.” The idea of music as absolute expression or signification was to be developed concertedly in the Romantic era by Arthur Schopenhauer and then often with reference to Richard Wagner. Troubadour songs certainly existed and circulated in oral form a long time prior to William’s compositions. The Troubadours broke down social and stylistic barriers by combining highly refined culture with popular poetry in the “natural” language of the vernacular. The image blends out into the totality signified by the circle composed by the subject’s outspread arms taken together with their reflection in the water, which swallows all in bottomless darkness.
