The Semantics of Fiction

With his focus on some purportedly 'paradoxical' speeches in Carroll's writings, Deleuze overlooks a more fundamental problem for Semantic theory--the Meaning of Fiction.  Now, a Meinongian theory seems well-suited to such cases--according to it, Carroll's 'Alice' means some non-existent but 'absistent' entity, as does 'Hamlet' and the 'round square'.  However, 'Hamlet' is more than an inhabitant of that realm--the name denotes a physical entity that frequently appears on a theater stage, just as 'Alice' now sometimes denotes a physical entity in cinematic and television productions.  So, as is clearer in the case of a playwright or screenwriter, words of 'Fiction' are, at bottom, instructions for performance, and, hence, are, like any other utterance, signals for possible enactment.  On that basis, the process of reading a novel is one of nascent staging.  So, while it is not impossible that 'Godot' could, in a sequel or a prequel, say, join 'Hamlet' and 'Alice' in becoming physically embodied, the 'round square' remains nothing more than an internally incoherent signal, i. e. 'draw a two-dimensional figure that is both round and square'.