Asian Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies

Asian Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies Volume 2, Issue 9, September 2014 ISSN: 2321-8819 (Online) 2348-7186 (Print) Impact Factor: 0.923 Riffaterre's Semiotics of Poetry in Re- Reading John Keats' "Bright Star" and Sepehri's "To the Garden of Co-Travelers" Raheleh Bahador 1 and Anita Lashkarian 2 1 Department of English Literature, faculty of humanities, Vali-e-Asr University. Vali-e-Asr University of Rafsanjan, Main Administrative building, 22 Bahman Square, Rafsanjan, Kerman, Iran. 2 Department of English, Meybod branch, Islamic Azad University, Yazd, Iran. Abstract: Language of poetry is different from language of prose and their reading and structure is different consequently. From semiotic aspect, poetry functions according to devices and components specific to its own. In Michael Riffaterre's term heuristic reading based on the linguistic competence of the reader hides the true understanding of a poem. On the other hand, retroactive reading which is based on the literary competence of the reader and semiotics, reinforce the aesthetic understanding of poetry and enjoyment of the reader. Semiotics of poetry by Michael Riffaterre (1978) provides new reading of poetry based on linguistics. The present paper will analyze John Keats' "Bright Star" (1819) and Sohrab Sepehri's "To the Garden of Co- Travelers" (1961) according to Michael Riffaterre's semiotics of poetry. This paper aims to highlight the relationship between reading poetry in semiotics field and the difference that it makes in clarification of true meaning of a poem. Reading the poems based on Riffaterre's theory will help readers to discover the aesthetics of the poems. It is justified that John Keats and Sohrab Sepehri walk in the same poetic line and in their poetic achievement in these poems desire towards unification with love and immortality. In the heuristic reading, the poets seem to desire towards an earthly beloved and physical love. Rejecting this reading, retroactive-semiotic reading will prove that the poets tend to immortality and unification with love itself. Key Words: semiotics of poetry, Michael Riffaterre, John Keats, Bright Star, Sohrab Sepehri, To the Garden of Co-Travelers. Introduction "During the late eighteenth century, a revolutionary uprising occurred and forced England to enter a new and innovative era known as the Romantic Period" (Masiello, 2010, p.2). Romantic period began at the end of the 19th century (1790s) and lasted until 1830 or else 1832, the year in which Sir Walter Scott died and the passage of the Reform Bill signaled political changes in the Victorian era. The transition in Europe from Enlightenment Classicism to Romanticism has frequently been described in dichotomous terms opposing, for example, Enlightenment or classical preference for rational order and symmetry with Romantic preference for spontaneity, fragmentation, and organisms."(ferber, 2005, p.10). It was deeply connected with the politics of the time, echoing people's fears, hopes, and aspirations. Politically, Romanticism was inspired by the outbreak of the French Revolution. William Hazlitt in the collection of his essays "The Spirit of the Age" (1846) described the French Revolution as seemed "the dawn of a new era, a new impulse had been given to men's minds" (Abrams, et.al. 2010, p. 1297(. The most important qualities of the movement are imagination and individuation. They valued feelings to the extent that the German painter Casper David Freidrich remarked "the artist's feeling is his law" (Friedenthal, 1963, p.32). Individualism in the poetry was the reflection of the personal feelings of the poet. It situates the poet's feelings at the center of the poem. The most prominent source of inspiration for the Romantic poet was nature and Romantic poetry is called "poetry of nature". According to Encyclopedia of religion and Nature (2005) "European Romanticism's complex understanding of the word "nature" must be seen against the background of the eighteenth century and the growth of industrial city" (Taylor, 2005, p.1422). Individuation reflects the personal feelings and passions of the poet in the vessel of words. Such feelings like love and hate are so strong expressions that one cannot define Romantic poetry without counting for them. Romantic qualities are more or less the same in the literature of the world and the poets are the very exponents of Romanticism if they count for the qualities which are mentioned so far. John Keats (1795-1821) is one of the outstanding poets of the Romantic Movement. "John Keats grew to be a poet in the atmosphere of romanticism dominated by Wordsworth and Coleridge. The traditions of the great romantic poets were carried forward by Keats." (Kumar, 2012, p.1) His works published posthumously; about four years after his death. Although his works were not well received by the critics of his age but his reputation grew after his death. Available online at www.ajms.co.in 116

Consequently "for half a century the appreciation of Keats s poems remained an affair of passionate cultivation by small groups of individuals." (Matthews, 2000, p.2) The poetic consciousness "asserting as a sense of presence, slides gently in non-commitmentas a startling development in the practice of ode in western literature, achieved naturally and logically by Keats." (Kappel, 1978, p.12) Among Keats' poetic themes is "the impersonal tone, skeptical attitude towards things, uncertainty and indeterminacy". (Mishra, 2009, p.2) Keats poetry is obsessed with love qualities. His poetry is engaged with the descriptions of the lover's feelings towards beloved, whether anonymous women or his beloved Fanny Brown. Among most well-known examples of Keats' love poetry are "Lamia" (1884), "La Belle dame sans Merci" (1884), "Isabella" (1884) and "Bright Star" (1819). Love reflects Keats' emotional feelings in the form of poetry. Love acts both as a kind of relief for the poet and suffering. Among the contemporary Iranian poets, Sohrab Sepehri (1928-1980) is well known as a Romantic poet of blank verse. He stands unique among his contemporaries because of his strong feelings and desire for individualism and love for God, mankind and nature. Born in Kashan, Sepehri grew up in an atmosphere full of color, heat and rural pictures. Nature in the poems of Sepehri is sacred and the poet accepts it easily and simply. As in his real life, he is the painter of nature in his poetry. To indicate the presence of nature we read that "there are some characteristics in Sepehri's poetry that does not exist in his contemporaries. Sepehri loves nature and is satisfied to speak of nature in the meanwhile of his poetry Sepehri believes that nature does not belong to human alone."(emmad, 1998, p.9) "Familiar with and interested in Eastern mysticism and Western literature and literary schools, gives his poetry a unique color and odor" (Mirali, 2013, p.1). Sepehri's poetry is full of love, equilibrium and peace towards universe and man. Individualism is among the prominent qualities of Iranian contemporary poetry and love makes it outstanding whether in its relation to an earthly beloved or in its social aspect to human kind in general. In fact in Sepehri, the earthly love is not an end in itself but it paves the way to get close to the eternal love who is God. Although there are some poems in Sepehri' collections of poems which are filled with the portrait of a woman's love but in a more keen outlook they reflect the beauty of God. Among Sepehri's poems, "To the Garden of Co- Travelers" and "The Wandering Hell" are the poems in which "the speaking voice is towards an earthly beloved or woman" (Behfar, 2001, p.5). The beloved's love is a way to God's love in these poems too. Poet searches union with love. Semiotics has been used as an interdisciplinary field in the study of literary works. Semiotics derived from linguistics, sociology, psychology and literary criticism studies sign as the base of the system of language. "Semiotics is the study of the signifier and signified to find their relation"(farhangi & Yousefpoor, 2010, p.1). On the one hand "Signs are studied with the focus on their potential communicative function. "The relationship which exists between signs and sign systems can be called a functional one, because this relationship always intends to express meaning"(ntsonda, 2009, p.10). On the other hand "semiotics is a part of linguistic" (Koupal, 2005, p.7). Michael Riffaterre, the French semiotician in Semiotics of Poetry (1978) distinguishes between poetic language and prose language. As Geoffrey N. Leech in A Linguistic to English Poetry (1991) asserts: " Poetic language may violate or deviate from the generally observed rules of the language in many different ways, some obvious, some subtle" (p.5). Riffaterre assigns a semiotic specific to poetry based on literary competence and retroactive reading of the reader. He believes that a poem does not signify in the same way as the prose text. Poetic language is also set apart from prose by the special status of its neologisms. Riffaterre towards poetry states that: "words are judged in relation to things and the text is judged in comparison to reality"(riffaterre, 1983, p.26). A poem establishes a system of significance, generated by processes such as accumulation and the use of descriptive systems. By accumulation Riffaterre means a group of words in a family of meaning. Each word is made up of one or more semes. A descriptive system is a collection of words associated with a concept or nucleus word. Riffaterre believes that in order to go beyond the surface meaning of the poem, the reader needs literary competence "to deal with frequent ungrammaticalities encountered in reading a poem" (Selden, 2005, p.57). Much critical works has been done on John Keats' and Sohrab Sepehri's poems. Review of some critical studies has been mentioned here. Andrew.J. Kappel in "The Immortality of the Natural: Keats' 'Ode to a Nightingale' " (1978) has discussed about the significance of the immortality of nightingale in the seventh stanza of the ode, thematically. The critic has discussed that whether the immortality of the nightingale refers to a specific bird or a species or it has a symbolic signification. Kappel writes: "If the nightingale's song is a symbol of lyric poetry, the words "immortal Bird" must refer to the Poet." (p.2) In a comparative study entitled "Defamiliarization in John Keats' and Sohrab Sepehri's Poems" (2007) N. Maleki and M. Navidi study poems of two mentioned poets. The writers of the paper study the poetic quality of negative capability and Defamiliarization as the common poetic characteristic in Keats and Sepehri. They conclude that what Keats has achieved as "negative capability" in his poems is the very concept that Sepehri achieves as "Defamiliarization" in his poetry. Accordingly, two poets walk in the same Asian Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies, 2(9) September, 2014 117

line. In "Objective Correlative in Some Poems of Keats and Sepehri" (2009) N. Maleki and M. Navidi study what has been defined as "indirect way of expressing feeling and passions" (2009, p.1) in poems of the poets. In "A Deconstructive Stylistic Reading of Keats' Ode on a Grecian Urn" (2010) Prashant Mishra has studied Keats' ode from deconstructive aspect. Deconstructive criticism becomes an attempt to read a text in order to approximate the intended meaning of the write. According to Mishra "Keats odes are the finest examples of entertaining mysteries, doubts and uncertainties surrounding the questions pertaining to human existence through imagination rather than a rational outlook." (2010, p.1). The scholar concludes that Keats has employed formal stylistic means and grammatical devices to escape any finality, determinacy and absoluteness. A. Mirali and M. Abdi in "A Glance at the Surrealistic Qualities in Eight Books" (2013) discuss that Sepehri' poems is full of attention to natural elements and their attribution to metaphysics and non-natural phenomena. Influenced by Eastern mysticism and Hindu-Buddhism, Sepehri makes his poetry to sparkle among that of his contemporaries. "Bright Star" (1819) is one of the most wellknown love sonnets of John Keats. The poet in an apostrophe addresses a star and describes that how he is eager to attain her love. Sepehri's "To the Garden of Co-Travelers" addresses an unknown woman or an earthly beloved. But in fact, the poet begs union with love itself. M.Shalooei in I am a Muslim (2012) writes: "embodying profound percepts, Sepehri's poetry seems to require careful considerations from both form and structure standpoint" (p.8). This comparative study will analyze the poems according to Michael Riffaterre's semiotics of poetry. The objective of the article is to show that how two poems go further than the surface meaning to point to a deeper meaning. It will show that how reading the poems based on semiotics of poetry help the reader to get a better understanding of meaning of a poem. The semiotics of poetry is a way to discover the aesthetics of poems. The questions presented in the article are: How do signs work in Keats' and Sepehri's poems based on Riffaterre's semiotics? To what extent the play of signs affect two different readings of the poems? The article will try to answer these questions. "Bright Star" and "To the Garden of Co- Travelers": Unification with Love and Immortality As one of the most well-known sonnets of John Keats, "Bright Star" was officially published in 1838 in The Plymouth and Devonport Weekly Journal, 17 years after Keats's death. The core idea of the sonnet is love and the desire of the lover to win his beloved. It is interesting to say that "Bright Star" is among those sonnets of Keats which in content and language is in maturity and aesthetic growth. Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art - Not in lone splendor hung aloft the night And watching, with eternal lids apart, Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite, The moving waters at their priestlike task Of pure ablution round earth's human shores, Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask Of snow upon the mountains and the moors No yet still stedfast, still unchangeable, Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast, To feel for ever its soft fall and swell, Awake forever in a sweet unrest, Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath, And so live ever or else swoon to death. (Gittings, 2008, p.143) Michael Riffaterre rejected the meaning of a poem according to the intention of the poet. He believes that the reader will go astray in reading a poem if he/she searches realities outside the poem itself. He believes that the kind of meaning reader finds in a poem or his/her response to the poem is influenced by the semiotic mechanism in the text itself. Riffaterre agrees with the Russian Formalists in regarding poetry as a special use of language. As we read in A Reader's Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory "Ordinary language is practical and is used to refer to some sort of reality, while poetic language focuses on the message as an end in itself."(selden, 2005, p.57). The language of poetry is an indirect language used by the poet to convey what he/she means. Riffaterre's critical views derive from structural background continues into the reader-response and leads to semiotics. Riffaterre distinguishes between two groups of readers. The first group read the poem in nonanalytical terms who read a poem as a system of information with reference to outside realities. The first group of readers content with the shallow meaning of the poem. The second group of readers in analytical terms tries to discover the relation and action of signs in a poem and reach to a deeper meaning. To have the meaning of the sonnet according to the poetic theory of Riffaterre is that the reader must engage into two processes of reading in that the first reading which Riffaterre calls "heuristic" points to a reality outside the poem. The first reading points to the meaning of poem and it needs only the linguistic competence of the reader. To read the poem in heuristic reading is to read it in grammatical aspect. It does not read a poem according to the play of signs and their relation. Consequently the investigation of the grammatical elements of the poem reduces it to a Asian Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies, 2(9) September, 2014 118

string of unrelated bits. Reading the sonnet in this way, it is addressed to a star and expresses the poet's wish to be as constant as the star while he presses against his sleeping love. He prefers to die rather than remains alone. Lover loves beloved's breasts and praises her breaths. The poet mourns the distance between him and his beloved and he does not like to be alone like star. He prefers to die if not going to have his beloved's breast. Accordingly, the poet expresses his physical desire towards the beloved and praises her for her physical characteristics like her breath or her breasts. In order to go through the interpretation of a poem, Riffaterre bounds the reader into the second reading. Respectively, Riffaterre coined "literary competence" to able the reader to deal with frequent "ungrammaticalities" in reading a poem. In the second reading which Riffaterre calls "retroactive reading", the reader goes through the ungrammatical aspects of the poem because the poem conveys its meaning indirectly. In the second reading, finally emerges a structural matrix which is based on the signs in the poem. This matrix can be a single sentence or even a single word. The poet never mentions this sentence or word directly in the poem. The matrix acts as a kind of message for the poem. It is the essence of what poet has tried to convey to the reader by the use of literary language. The poem is connected to its matrix by actual versions of the matrix in the form of familiar statements, clichés, quotations, or conventional associations. The matrix ultimately gives a poem unity. Applying this theory to the sonnet, there emerges these hypograms (commonplaces). 1) Lover looks at the sky and desires star's steadfast position. 2) He would rather be "Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast" (10). 3) The poet explains that if forced to choose, he would choose the breast and die as opposed to being steadfast and immortal. Reading the sonnet in semiotics of poetry, the matrixes or semantic nucleus of these hypograms are: desire for immortality, purity of love, limitation of choice. Keats never mentions these words directly in the sonnet but the sonnet depicts this matrix by the use of signifiers in the poem. According to the theory the narrator envoys bright star's steadfastness signifies lover's desire for immortality. The poem deals with the love and appreciation of things that are unchanging. Newly fallen snow and pure ablution represents purity and contains a connotation of sexual purity. (10). Lover seeks immortality in love (14). The poet realizes he cannot have it both ways. Humans cannot be steadfast and immortal and love is an essential part of being human. The matrix of "Bright Star" has been developed from a single word into a sonnet by the use of "overdetermination", "conversion" and "expansion". In Riffaterre's semiotic expression overdetermination means that the signifiers used in a poem do not refer to realities outside the text but they return to other signs in the poem and therefore makes a poem a system of signifiers and signified. In result of "overdetemination" signs like "priestlike" (5), "pure ablution" (6) and "snow" (8) do not point to outside realities but signify their own signifiers in the sonnet. They are signifying as follows: "priestlike": moving waters (5), "pure ablution": love splendor (2), unchangeable (9), "snow": ripening breast (10), respectively. When reading the poem, the reader determines the hypograms and develops them in his/her mind. In conversion process a part or the whole of a common phrase or cliché changes. In this way the altered meaning of that phrase or cliché make a new expression. By the use of conversion the poet is able to develop the scope of meaning for the conversed phrase or cliché conveys both its primary meaning and make a new one which is the result of poetic manipulation. In the sonnet "conversion" (changing clichés and saying them in a new way) takes place in "pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast" (10). The poet has changed "rest" to "pillow'd" and young, beautiful breast to "ripening breast". The poet has used metaphors instead of direct words. In another case the poet compares the lover to "Nature's patient" (4) and "sleepless Eremite" (4). Both "patient" and "sleepless" are the common characteristics of lover but the poet has changed a part of them and has added "nature" and "Eremite" to make a new literary composition.. Using the third principle in Riffaterre's definition, the poet has used expansion to develop "love" as the central idea of the poem. Not directly, the poet has used signs in the poem to indicate this core concept. In line 13 "her" returns to a female and beloved. Then the poet goes through the characteristics of the beloved and lover to develop the central idea of love in the poem. According to what has been discussed in the two previous paragraphs, Sepehri's "To the Garden of Co-Travelers" will be analyzed. Influenced by the atmosphere of World War II and the chaos and fear associated with the modern age, the poem reflects the loneliness of human kind. The poet searches peace and equilibrium in love: Call me. Your voice is sweet. Your voice is the chloroform of that odd plant That grows in the end of the intimate grief. * In the dimensions of this still age I'm lonelier than the taste of a tune in the context of a lane Come so I tell you how great is my loneliness. And my solitude never predicted the night-slaught of your bulk. And that's the property of love. Asian Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies, 2(9) September, 2014 119

No one's here Let's steal life, and then Share it between two meanings. Come melt like a word in the line of my silence. Come melt in my palm the luminous mass of love. Warm me up In these lanes of gloom I dread the multiplication of doubt and match. I dread the cement surface of the century. Come so I fear not cities whose black soil is pasture for cranes. Open me like a door to the descent of the pear In this age of the ascent of steel. Lull me under a bow far from the night of metal's frictions. Should the explorer of the morning mine come, call me up. And I shall wake in the dawn of a lilac behind your fingers and then And then I, warm like a faith by the equator's glow, Shall seat you in the preface of a garden. (Saeedpoor, 2011, p.68) In the heuristic reading which analyzes a poem according to its grammatical components the poet addresses a woman who is his beloved and begs her to put an end to his loneliness with her presence. Beloved's voice is so sweet and in an "intimate"(4) way which reminds of sexual and physical intimacy, tantalizes the poet to the bosom of the beloved. He is afraid of "lanes of gloom" (15) and cities and he wants to be near his beloved. Words like "voice" (2), "your bulk" (body) (8) and "finger" (24) indicate the physical importance of beloved and consequently the sexual desire of the poet. On the other hand, "finger" evokes "being stroke" and reinforces the idea of physical love. In this reading which is based on the linguistic competence of the reader, the poem has been read according to the signifiers and their arrangement in the poem. But in the second, retroactive reading which is based on the literary competence of the reader, the meaning of the poem will change completely. The retroactive reading makes possible a deeper meaning by the use of following structural elements. To discover the matrix of the poem, it is needed to identify its hypograms which are as follows: 1) Lover wants to share his loneliness with his beloved. 2) He begs the beloved to warm him up in her bosom. 3) Lover wants the physical unification with beloved. But reading the poem in semiotics of poetry which is based on the signs in the poem not on the base of some realities outside it, the matrixes or semantic nucleuses of these hypograms are: desire for unification with love and achieve equilibrium and peace in love. Not mentioned directly in the poem, these matrixes are the fruit of the retroactive reading. The poem expresses the desire of the lover for unification not with the beloved but with the essence of love that is peace and tranquility. In lines 12 and 13, we read "Come melt like a word in the line of my silence / Come melt in my palm the luminous mass of love." The repetition of the word "melt" shows that to what extent the lover want to achieve unity with love, to melt with it means to gain unity with love and immortality. Unification with love and immortality could be read in term of Divine love. The poet indicates this idea in line 23 "should the explorer of the morning mine come, call me up". One who is the explorer of the morning mine, opens the gate of sun to the man is God. He is the source of real immortality and love. Riffaterre believes that "in order to understand the structure of a poemthe reader ought to analyze "overdetermination", "conversion" and "expansion" in a poem" (Payandeh, 2009, p.7). The matrix of "To the Garden of Co-Travelers" unification with and immortality of love- has expanded from a phrase into a blank verse by the use of "overdetermination". In this way the central ideas and meanings in the poem are: "loneliness": taste of a tune (6), solitude (8), and my silence (13). "death/fear": lanes of gloom (16), multiplication of doubt and match (17), cement surface of the century (18), black soil (19), age of assent of steel (21), still age (5) and night of metal's friction (21). "Love/beloved": night-slaught bulk (8), luminous mass (14), intimate grief (4), dawn of a lilac (23), warm up (15), faith (24), garden (25), lull me (21). The second element Riffaterre has introduced as the influential factor in developing the central meaning of a poem is "conversion". Accordingly, the conversions used in the poem are: "love's splendor": night-slaught of your bulk (8), intimate grief (4), and luminous mass (14). "Beloved's voice": the chloroform of that odd plant (3), sweet (2). The third element, influential in the process of emerging the matrix of this poem is "expansion". The poet has expanded "loneliness", "love" and "fear of modernity" into a blank verse. Using the words that indicate these concepts, the poet has developed the ideas into a poem. It is useful to point out that each of these elements could overlap each other. But it can be said that the poet uses two factors of overdetermination and conversion in the favor of expansion. The structural core of expansion is overdetermination and conversion in order to develop the matrix-central idea- into a poem. Asian Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies, 2(9) September, 2014 120

According to Rifftterre there are two processes that make the poetry possible. The first one is accumulation. Each word is made up of one or more semes (minimal units of meaning). Accumulation is a chain of words that have a common idea. What's more, the words that is part of the accumulation "become synonyms of one another irrespective of their original meaning in ordinary language" (Riffaterre, 1983, p.39). The significance of accumulation is that this process gives a synonymous quality to the words. Riffaterre believes that the process of accumulation occurs when the reader reads a series of words that are related through a core of meaning that links them together. Riffaterre calls this a "shared seme". The poet never mentions this core meaning or central word directly in the poem. As the reader progresses, accumulation "filters through the semantic features of its words, thereby overdetermining the occurrence of the most widely represented seme and cancelling out the semes that appear less frequently" (Riffaterre, 1983, p.39). In the sonnet of Keats there are three constellations of accumulations. The words: steadfast (1), patient (4), sleepless (4), lone splendor (2) and unchangeable (9) signify an accumulation that their meaning is connected through the shared seme "characteristics of a lover". The second accumulation consists of the words: fair's love (10), breast (10), soft swell and fall (11), sweet unrest (12) tender-taken breath (13) signify "characteristics of beloved". The third accumulation links these two accumulations and signifies the quality of love between lovers. Accordingly, the words: priest-like task (5), pure ablution (6) and snow (8) are connected with "purity and immortality of love" as shared seme. The shared semes that derive from these accumulations is "love". If we add words "lone splendor", "eternal lids" and "steadfast" the overdetermined seme will be "immortality". This kind of semiotics needs a retroactive reading which emphasizes the literary competence of the reader. "To the garden of Co-Travelers" could be read from the very perspectives. In the poem there are at least three constellations of accumulation. The first and main shared seme is loneliness. It could be defined also as the qualities the lover could be defined by. The accumulation words of solitude (8), silence (13), still age (5), lanes of gloom (16), and taste of a tune (6) provide the scope for loneliness. The second constellation of accumulation is intimate grief (4), night-slaught bulk (8) and luminous mass (14) with "love/lover" as its shared seme. The third accumulation with the shared seme of "hope" consists of dawn of a lilac (23), warm up (15), faith (24), garden (25) and lull me (21). These shared semes in the form of accumulation make the central ideas in Sepehri's poem. Michael Riffaterre determines "descriptive system" as the second element in making a poem. In other words, a descriptive system is a group of words, expressions and ideas that are used in the text to designate the parts of the whole that the author wants to represent. With accumulation, the relationship between the terms is synonymous, whereas in the case of a descriptive system, "each component of the system functions as a metonym of the nucleus" (Riffaterre, 1983, p.39). This metonymic relationship subordinates all of the words in the descriptive system to the nuclear word. The descriptive system is a set of stereotypes and conventional ideas about the word with which it is associated. In "Bright Star" we can determine three descriptive systems: 1) lover: steadfast (1), lone splendor (2), patient and sleepless (4). 2) Love: snow (8), pure ablution (6), priestlike (5) and unchangeable (9). 3) Beloved: breast (10), fair (10), sweet (12) and tender-taken breath (13). When the reader reads anyone of these words in the poem, the same semantic nucleus will form in his/her mind. In Sepehri's "To the Garden of Co-Travelers" the same descriptive system could be analyzed. 1) Lover: silence (13), solitude (8), intimate grief (4) and a door to the descent of the pear. 2) Beloved: voice (2), finger (24), nightslaught bulk (8), the chloroform of that odd plant (3) and sweet (2). 3) Fear and hopelessness: black soil (19), gloom (16), cement surface (18) and still age (5). 4) Hope: dawn (23), warm (24), garden (25), equator's glow (24) and faith (24). As it is clear, accumulation and descriptive system could overlap like what had been studied in three structural elements of overdetermination, conversion and expansion. The constituent words could overlap and make common compositions. The poets never have mentioned these matrixes directly in their poems. But in a retroactive reading and by the use of poetic devices in semiotics of poetry, the reader could go through the deeper meaning and understanding of these poems. Conclusion Michael Riffaterre's semiotics of poetry provides the reader to achieve a meaning of the poem which is based on the close reading and semiotics investigation. Riffaterre's critical theory in poetry consists of two processes of reading. In this comparative study, John Keats' "Bright Star" (1819) and Sohrab Sepehri's "To the Garden of Co- Travelers" had been studied based on Riffaterre's semiotics of poetry. The heuristic reading of the poems shows that the poems point to outside realities. They depict the physical desire of the poet towards beloved and the poet mourns the loneliness and distance between him and his beloved and he does not like to be alone like the star in "Bright Star" or in a still age in "To the garden of Co- Travelers". Not providing a deep understanding, heuristic reading is based on grammatical analysis. In retroactive reading which is based on the literary competence of the reader, in "Bright Star" the narrator envoys bright star's steadfastness that signifies lover's desire for immortality. The poem Asian Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies, 2(9) September, 2014 121

deals with love and appreciation of things that are unchanging. "To The Garden of Co-Travelers" recounts the fear and loneliness of the poet as same as "Bright Star". The poet wants to cross the helllike world of modern age and take shelter in the peace of love. The sonnet has developed this matrix by the use of "overdetermination", "expansion" and "conversion". Each one shows the poem as "an end in itself" in which the meaning can be detected by the play of signifier and signified. The retroactive reading accounts for the "ungrammaticalities" in the poem and highlights its aesthetic qualities. Identifying hypograms of two poems result in matrixes or semantic nucleuses as follows: desire for and unification with immortality and love. The matrix of two poems has been developed from a single word and phrase into poems by the use of three poetic structural principles: overdetermination, conversion and expansion. The poets never have mentioned these matrixes directly in their poems. But in a retroactive reading and by the use of poetic devices in semiotics of poetry, the reader could go through the deeper meaning and understanding of these poems. According to Rifftterre there are two processes that make the poetry possible. The first one is accumulation. The significance of accumulation is that process gives a synonymous quality to the words and forms "shared seme". In the sonnet of Keats there are three constellations of accumulations: love, lover and beloved. In Sepehri's poem also emerge three constellations of accumulations: loneliness, love/lover and hope. Michael Riffaterre determines "descriptive system" as the second element in making a poem. In descriptive system the relationship of the signs is based on metonym. In "Bright Star" we can determine three descriptive systems: love, lover and beloved. In Sepehri's "To the Garden of Co- Travelers" the same descriptive system could be analyzed. References: Abrams, M.H, et al. (2010). The Norton Anthology of English Literature. New York: Norton Publication. Behfar, M. (1999). Love Singing in Persian Poetry: Sohrab Sepehri Suspected to Womanhood in Poetic Passions and Images. Literature and Languages, Golestaneh Journal, 10, 5. Emmad, H. (1998). To the Garden of Co-Travelers: The Eight Books: Criticism of Sohrab Sepehri's Poetry and Thought. Tehran: Ketab Khoob Publication. Farhangi, S., & Yousefpoor, M. (2010). A Semiotic study of Gheysar Aminpoor's Poetry. Journal of Persian Language and Literature, 21, 1. Ferber, M. (2005). A Companion to European Romanticism. U.K: Blackwell Publishing. Friedenthal, R. (1963). Letters of the Great Artists, from Blake to Pollock, London: Thames& Hudson Publication. Gittings, R. (2008). John Keats' Selected Letters. New York: Oxford University Press. Farhangi, S., & Yousefpoor, M. (2010). A Semiotic study of Gheysar Aminpoor's Poetry. Journal of Persian Language and Literature, 21, 1. Hassanzadeh Mirali, A., & Abdi, M. (2013). A Glance at the Surrealistic Aspects of The Eight Books. Journal: The Contemporary Persian Literature, The center of Human Sciences and Cultural Studies, 1, 1. Kappel, J. A. (1978). The Immortality of Natural: Keats' Ode to a Nightingale. The John Hopkins University, 12. Koupal, A. (2005). The Rise and Fall of Semiotics, from Theory to Practice. Journal of Baghe Nazar, 7, 7. Kumar, S. (2012). A Few Lines on the Odes of John Keats. International Journal of Scientific and Research Publications, 2, 1. Leech, G. N. (1991). A Linguistic Guide to English Poetry. London and New York: Longman. Masiello, Ch. A. (2010). Romanticism: New Waves of Imaginative Thinking. Elizabeth City State University, 2. Matthews, G.M. (2000). The Critical Heritage: John Keats. New York: Routledg. Mishra, P. (2009). A Deconstructive Stylistic Reading of Keats' Ode on a Grecian Urn. The Southeast Asian Journal of English Language Studies, 17, 1-2. Ntsonda, M. (2009). An Analysis of Selected Poems from Sefalana sa Menta by L. D. Raditladi with Reference to Riffaterre's and Lotman's Semiotics. The Potchefstroom Campus the North-West University, 10. Payandeh, H. (2009). Semiotic Analysis of "Zemestan". Literature and Languages, Goharan Journal, 21 & 22, 7. Riffaterre, M. (1983). Semiotics of Poetry, Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Saeedpoor, S. (2011). Selected Poems of Sohrab Sepehri. Tehran: Iranian Poet's Society. Selden, R, et al. (2005). A Reader's Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory. London: Pearson. Shalooei, M. (2012). I am a Muslim. Tehran: Society for the Appreciation of Cultural Works and Dignities. Asian Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies, 2(9) September, 2014 122