Semiotic Perspective on Literary Genres: A Study of the Poem ‘Birches’ by Robert Frost

Muhammad Ilyas  Mahmood; Abida  Shamim; Muhammad  Aslam

doi:10.47067/jlcc.v3i3.65

Authors

Muhammad Ilyas Mahmood
Abida Shamim
Muhammad Aslam

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.47067/jlcc.v3i3.65

Keywords:

Style, Semiotics, Signs, Images, Symbols, Birches

Abstract

‘Birches’ an eminent poem by Robert Frost has been analyzed here from semiotic perspective. This poem is a pastoral lyric as the poet uses a number of natural elements like birches, woods, cobwebs, winter, snow, branches and heaven to signify life and its various situations. As these words have various symbolic connotations, so readers, particularly, students of literature face problems in comprehension and appreciation of author’s point of view in absence of decoding the meaning-bearing “signs” of the text. This paper intends to present semiotic analysis of the literary genres as an alternative to the hackneyed impressionistic approach to stylistic analysis and interpretation. The study recommends that students of English Literature be initiated in the analytic techniques embedded in the social semiotic perspective for balancing subjectivity and criticality. The study also emphasizes use of semioticism as a paradigm for evaluation of textual studies by the research community.

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