Abstract: Goethe offers his literary interpretation of the relationship and its meaning between words and images in his novel, Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre. The author doesn't substitute words with images, as he often claimed, but places both of them in a special and tension-filled interplay. To be exact,the unique textual structure and narrative strategy of the novel are closely related to the author's language skepticism. Image, as it is interwoven with wording, may represent not only an opportunity for the narrative, but also its subject and content. The similarity between them lies in the prohibition of a single meaning, which is replaced by the openness and unpredictability of meaning. In Goethe's interpretation,what readers will encounter is not just the deficiency in the communicative function of words or the breakage between signifier and designatum. They will, more likely, encounter the temptation of images and the multiple meanings behind them. In other words, images are not necessarily more reliable than words. In this sense, words and images are not opposites; instead, they are isomorphic. They are two sides of the same coin, different in appearance but identical in essence. While articulating his skepticism toward language or interpreting the multiple meanings of images, Goethe took advantage of a cross-media narrative strategy in creating a new order of symbles that breaks up the linear narrative and the singularity of meaning. What corresponds to this is nothing but a multivalent space of art.

Key words: Goethe, Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre, language skepticism, image, multivalence