A Semiotic Study of the Ode Kalimāt li al-Vatan (Words for fatherland) by Tawfiq Ziād on Peirce Theory

The poems of Tawfiq Ziād are blended with signs and symbols that multiplied the charism of resistance poems, and their emotional feeling have influences on the addressees. The signs in Tawfiq’s poems are accompanied by the images of fatherland love that can convey the main message of the poem. Applying Peirce's semiotic model in the criticism of resistance poems in addition to analysis and decoding these poems, can be effective in understanding the thoughts of this great poet. So, the present article tries to analyze in an analytic-descriptive method the characteristics of the ode Kalimāt li al-Vatan (Words for fatherland) by Tawfiq Ziād from semiotic approach based on Pierce theory that is on the triad of icon, index and symbol basis. This article intends to make clear that what sort of aesthetic signs are used by Tawfiq Ziād, the contemporary Palestinian poet, and how he used aesthetic signs to influence the addressees, as well as to reveal how we can reach hidden aspects of the poet's thoughts in using signs and codes in the light of semiotic, interpretative and semantic criticisms. This article shows that Pierce semiotic theory is an appropriate pattern for research in modern poems and is more powerful than the traditional rhetorics in terms of interpretation. Furthermore, due to the nature and type of resistance poems that are composed in the atmosphere of tyranny and suffocation, their signs are implicit and mysterious. In this ode the symbolic signs are more than iconic signs and indces.