" The Fragile Lover: The Semiotics of Fracture and Deferred Certainty in the Poetry of a Handful of the Lover's Trace."

Abstract

This study explores the semiotic dimensions of Ibrahim Mustafa al-Hamad’s collection, A Handful of the Lover’s Trace, adopting the "fragile lover" concept as a gateway to analyze the aesthetics of refraction and deferred certainty. The approach seeks to trace the semantic trajectories shaping the poetic self’s identity, envisioned as a space where signs of presence and absence collide, embodying profound human experience. Employing a semiotic methodology, the research analyzes how the "trace" shifts from a material signifier into an existential symbolism reflecting the fragmentation of being amidst inevitable loss and existential transformations. The findings conclude that al-Hamad’s poetic text offers no mere emotional outpouring; instead, it establishes a complex semiotic system that postpones certainty into a state of perpetual "deferral," endowing the experience with dramatic brilliance and cognitive tension. Ultimately, this research re-evaluates contemporary poetic discourse through the semiotics of the self, highlighting how fragility is articulated as an expressive force that transcends defeat to interrogate existence and its challenges. The modern poetic experience represents a fundamental turning point in the course of Arab aesthetic consciousness, as poetry is no longer merely a rhetorical formulation of complete positions, but has turned into a tool for exploring existential anxiety and dismantling traditional structures. In this context, critical concepts have emerged that attempt to monitor this transformation, most notably the concepts of "fracture" and "postponed certainty," which express the state of rupture between the self and the world, and between the desire for knowledge and the impossibility of reaching absolute truth.