Semiotics of the Title in Abdul-Ghani Al-Mikhlafi’s (A Room with One Eye) Anthology of Poems

Abstract

       This research aimed to analyze the Title of ‘A Room with One Eye’, poems anthology [Diwan sheir] by Abdul-Ghani Al-Mikhlafi, in light of the semiotic approach, by focusing on the semiotics of the outer-cover title, and then tracing the semiotics of this main title and its relation with the in-text sub-titles. The research was divided into an introduction, a theoretical background, and two chapters; The first is entitled ‘The outer-cover Title’ while the second is entitled ‘The Relationship Between the Title and the Text’, and a conclusion, including the findings and recommendations. The research came out with a number of results, the most important of which are: The title of the anthology is distinguished by a formulation that contains and summarizes the content, with the grammatical and Sematic deletions, that permeate its structure. It thus came as concise, condensed, and inspiring, raising many questions for the recipient, thus the meanings of its three structures expanded the interpretations of the reception and opened them wide, revealing that its structure represents most of the main functions of the title, it was also imbued with poetics created from the springs of metaphor; thus, it attracted the reader, drew his attention, and led him to explore the worlds of the text. In addition to the poet's tendency toward the poem/title strategy, by choosing a specific poem to be the title of the anthology as a whole through the semantic connection between them, and by summarizing its contents and connotations. Al-Mikhlafi was able, to adopt the title threshold technique, to present a reading of the daily life he lived, and to give it a new character.