Semiotics of the Clothing System in Molavi's Masnavi

The clothing system is one of the important systems that have a significant presence in literary texts. Molavi is one of the poets who were able to transform the system of language signs of clothing into literary signs. He creates new signs in the text of the story by using words and everyday signs of clothes. This research aims to investigate and analyze the symbols of clothing in the stories of Masnavi with Barthes’ semiotic approach, especially the theory of Doxa and Paradox. In this theory, Barthes does not limit the meaning and concept of the sign to the explicit meaning and tries to design a model to achieve the implicit meaning of the signs in addition to the explicit meaning. Analytical investigation of this theory in anecdotes from Masnavi shows that Rumi does not use symbols in their conventional meaning, rather by creating new signs as well as interpreting the stories, he achieves a new reading of the primary signs, which are connected with the entire system of signs in Masnavi.