Circus and Culture: a Semiotic Approach (Advances in Semiotics)

Indiana Univ Pr, 1976. Hard Cover. Fine/Very Good. Book is in excellent condition with bright red cloth HB covers. Binding is solid and square, covers have sharp corners, exterior shows no blemishes, text/interior is clean and free of marking of any kind. Dust jacket shows the slightest signs of shelf wear only, no tears, now wrapped in protective cover. Previous owner's name at front endpaper. Several larger b&w photos, 206 pages with notes and index. Contents include: Circus as multimedia language, Structure and meaning of acrobatic acts, The performing horse, On jugglers and magicians: some aspects of the semantics of circus performances, Equire exhibitions as poetic discorse, Clown performances as metacultural texts, Semiotics of the circus poster. "" The circus is the lving depository of certain of the most ancient arts of civilization. Through it, man continues to communicate with animals and with some of the higher powers lying within the normal aptitudes of the species, which, for this reason, is endowed in our eyes with supernatural prestige. We can congratulate ourselves that Professor Bouissac, who has been himself a man of the circus, has had at the same time the intellectual capacity and the literary talent required to elaborate a theory which has always been lacking and which this book presents in a particularly brilliant manner."" -- Claude Levi-Strauss