The Poetics of Rejection and Nostalgia: A Semiotic and Semantic Reading of Mahmoud Darwish’s Poem "I Yearn for My Mother’s Bread" as a Paradigm

Abstract

The Poetics of Rejection and Nostalgia: A Semiotic and Semantic Reading of Mahmoud Darwish’s Poem "I Yearn for My Mother’s Bread" This academic study aims to deconstruct the semiotic and semantic network of Mahmoud Darwish’s renowned poem "I Yearn for My Mother’s Bread," composed in 1965 during his imprisonment in an Israeli jail. The study posits that nostalgia in Darwish’s poetic discourse is neither a passive emotional withdrawal nor a romantic retreat into the past; rather, it functions as an active semiotic practice of rejection and resistance against geopolitical erasure and identity suppression. Utilizing a semiotic and semantic approach grounded in the theoretical frameworks of Ferdinand de Saussure, Roland Barthes, and Algirdas Greimas, the research examines the denotative and connotative shifts of textual codes. Everyday markers such as bread, coffee, a mother's touch, and the thread of a dress are transformed into macro-signs representing the homeland, territorial sovereignty, and existential security. Furthermore, the paper analyzes binary oppositions within the text to demonstrate how Darwish’s personal nostalgic lament expands into a collective manifesto of resistance asserting the inevitable return of displaced Palestinians to their homeland.