Carnival!

When Codigo e mensagem do Carnaval reached me, from Brazil, early in 1976, I was at once entranced by its artistic design of arrested but illuminated movement, informed by semiotically sophisticated interpretation. Although I was determined to provide this intelligence about the escolas de samba for the benefit of the English reading public, various technical difficulties delayed the appearance of this version for eight years. During this hiatus, lvanov's erudite semiotic theory of carnival appeared, in the Soviet Union, in 1977, and is here presented in English, with an important-if brief-postscript by the author. Another outstanding semiotician's (hitherto unpublished) remarks-those of Eco on the carnival vis-a-vis the comic-open this triptych of a text. In providing variations by the outstanding Russian and Italian masters on the themes so colorfully displayed by Monica Rector, the embogged realization of this project may, it is hoped, be pardoned. Thomas A. Sebeok