The cover of a book as an element of material design and as an artistic image. “The Endless Story” (“Die unendliche Geschichte”) by M. Ende

Abstract

In the article, the cover of a literary work is considered as an intermedial phenomenon that combines verbal and visual components. The purpose of the article is to clarify the features of the semanticization of the cover for the novel “The Endless Story” (“Die Unendliche Geschichte”) by the German writer M. Ende. The theoretical basis of the article is the idea that goes back to M.M. Bakhtin of a literary work as a complex communication event. The article sees into how the combination of visual and verbal elements on the cover of M. Ende’s book is interpreted in three communicative and semantic continuums: external-vital, internal-vital and aesthetic. The design of the dust jacket and binding is linked to the world of M. Ende’s characters. As a result of the analysis of the cover semantics, we come to a number of conclusions: 1) in the outer-life semantic continuum, the dust jacket is semanticized first of all, forming a certain horizon of reader’s expectations; 2) the binding, on the contrary, is firmly connected with the inner-life semantic context; 3) in the aesthetic communicative-semantic continuum, the cover, combining verbal and visual elements, represents the semantics of the artistic whole: first of all, artistically updates the significant for the “Infinite stories” semantics of the interrelation of the artistic and life worlds.