Semiotic application of Michael Riffaterre theory to Adnān al-Sayegh's obur ilā al-manfī (Passage to Exile)

According to the semiotic theory of Riffaterre that is built upon the reader’s literary competence, reading a poem takes place in two levels of heuristic and retroactive. In this theory, in addition to attention to the various aspects of the poem structure, namely accumulations, descriptive systems, hypograms, and key topics and structural matrix, some hidden layers of poems disclose and coherence, mental plan and implications behind the surface meaning of the poem explained. This paper uses a descriptive-analytical method in reread the poem 'Passage to Exile' and tries to understand hidden layers of that poem in the proposed framework of Riffaterre. The results of the present study show that in the poem some accumulations of "power and domination', "pain and sadness", 'colonialism", "fighting and protest" and descriptive poems of 'train", "woman", "homeland" and "accused" and the origins of "the chaotic and awful past" in the poem leads to a mood of anxiety and sad, despair of better situations in the future. Dominant ungrammaticality of the poem includes metaphor, simile, allegory and part- whole metonymy. This poem by three rule of determining multiple factors of conversion and expansion transformed to "The Passage to the Exile". Disclose of the poem matrix proves that though poetic signs are superficially different, they are in fact variables of a fix factor.