Application of Michael Riffaterre’s Semiotics Theory in the Analysis of Fereydoon Tavallali’s Poem “Mahtab”

Abstract

Semiotics is a systematic, reader-centered, and structuralist-based study that was introduced by Michael Riffaterre (1978) as a practical method for analyzing literary texts, especially poetry. According to this theory, the reader—through their literary competence—identifies interconnected networks of signs, uncovers the poem’s connotations, and perceives the subtexts disseminated throughout the text to discover its origin and underlying meaning. The present article first introduces Riffaterre’s theoretical approach and then, based on this framework, provides a reading of the poem “Mahtab” from Tavallali’s poetry collection Raha. This poem, like most of the works in the Raha collection, contains innovative poetic imagery accompanied by themes such as loneliness, despair, darkness, sorrow, and death, which are considered central characteristics of the Romantic school. This study, employing a descriptive–analytical method and drawing on Riffaterre’s semiotics theory as well as its theoretical capacities and scholarly contributions, seeks to propose creative strategies for reading and conducting a more precise analysis of the selected poems.