When Scheherazade Cries: A Dialectic Semiotic Reading of the Title: A Study Of Rita Odeh's Poem Ṣarkhat ʾiʿrab/ A Cry of Parsing

Abstract

Literary critics and scholars had not shown interest in the thresholds of the title of the text until modern semiotic studies gave interest to everything that surrounds the text such as titles, prefaces, references, margins and alerts. Semiotic studies pointed out that these elements are significant keys that help to dive into the depths of the text to unravel its mysteries and enigmas. Such studies are rarely empty of references to the textual thresholds, especially the title, which is the main threshold that compels the researcher to inquire it before diving into the depths of the text. "Semiotics of the title" is considered one of the important issues of criticism which modern critics have dived into. Probably the title plays an essential role in understanding the deep meanings of the literary work that is introduced to the receiver. Thus, interest in the title is inevitable because it is the first thresholds of the text through which the reader enters the landmarks of the text to discover its entity and afterwards, to introduce a critical modernist vision that is based on a methodology and theoretical principles that helps to the uncover the hidden landmarks of the text and introduce it to the receiver in the form of a critical reading of the literary work. The majority of the definitions that are given to the title deal with it in discrepant manners, and in spite of that, we ultimately conclude that it is a linguistic coded sign that stands above the text to lend it a certain characteristic, to define it and to tempt the reader to read it and think about its connotations. It requires a clever receiver who can decode its signs that rise above its structure. Without title, many books would remain imprisoned on the bookshelves and the libraries. The titles of many books became popular or unpopular or even a disaster to the books and their authors.