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Abstract: This paper presents some semiotic and hermeneutic concepts belonging to renowned authors in the field of symbol studies; the goal is to emphasize the universal vocation of symbol as a main explanatory element both to Semiotics and Hermeneutics, in areas where the symbolic thinking replaces the rational thinking. In this respect, I try to highlight the parallelism between symbols in Romanian folklore and in Biblical mythology. The upper goal of this approach is to emphasize a way of understanding human creation and human condition by means of the explanatory potential of symbol, the most complex cultural phenomenon and the best instrument of mankind's cultural awareness.
Keywords: archetype, mythology, symbol, topos (topoi), type.
Motto:
"...symbolism shows the human need to endlessly extent World's hierophany, to permanently find doubles, substitutes and shares of a given hierophany, and more than that, it shows the tendency to identify this hierophany with the entire Universe".
(Mircea Eliade)1
1. Umberto Eco's concepts of "type", "symbol" and "topos"
Umberto Eco's book Apocalyptic and Integrated People2 is as pertinent today as it has been when it was written, by the middle of the 20th century. The author himself has always been a relevant voice in the European and international cultural contexts, from universities to TV shows and holiday readings, from scholars and journalists to pupils. I will first focus on his descriptions of some useful semiotic concepts, helping me to then outline my parallelism of symbols between Romanian folkloric mythology and some topoi encountered in Biblical stories. These topoi may suggest the Christian origins of some significant symbols in our folklore, symbols which encapsulate important values and strategies of setting a worldview, a vision of man's life and of its meaning that has something to do with the sacred. Furthermore, this parallelism could emphasize a universal nature of symbol in terms of its sacred pattern. My assumption is that it is this very nature that confers the explanatory power of symbols, as compared to the narrower character of signs, in terms of interpreting mysterious, hidden, vague, imaginary or mystic cultural phenomena, in art, religion, psychoanalysis, history of ideas etc.
In my book, Order and Disorder of Symbols3, I pinpointed the difference between the explanatory potential of symbols as compared to that...