Stranger Fictions

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca C. Johnson
Keyword(s):  
World Literature ◽  
Arab World ◽  
Central Place ◽  
Arabic Literature ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Reading Practices ◽  
Global Circulation ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
History Of ◽  
Modern Arabic

Zaynab, first published in 1913, is widely cited as the first Arabic novel, yet the previous eight decades saw hundreds of novels translated into Arabic from English and French. This vast literary corpus influenced generations of Arab writers but has, until now, been considered a curious footnote in the genre's history. Incorporating these works into the history of the Arabic novel, this book offers a transformative new account of modern Arabic literature, world literature, and the novel. This book rewrites the history of the global circulation of the novel by moving Arabic literature from the margins of comparative literature to its center. Considering the wide range of nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century translation practices, the book argues that Arabic translators did far more than copy European works; they authored new versions of them, producing sophisticated theorizations of the genre. These translations and the reading practices they precipitated form the conceptual and practical foundations of Arab literary modernity, necessitating an overhaul of our notions of translation, cultural exchange, and the global. The book shows how translators theorized the Arab world not as Europe's periphery but as an alternative center in a globalized network. It affirms the central place of (mis)translation in both the history of the novel in Arabic and the novel as a transnational form itself.

A Thousand and One Nights and the Novel

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard van Leeuwen
Keyword(s):  
Magical Realism ◽  
World Literature ◽  
Freedom Of Expression ◽  
Arab World ◽  
Arabic Literature ◽  
Literary Genre ◽  
The Novel ◽  
The West ◽  
Eighteenth And Nineteenth Centuries ◽  
Modern Arabic

This chapter examines the influence of Alf layla wa layla (A Thousand and One Nights), the ingenious Arabic cycle of stories, on the development of the novel as a literary genre. It shows that the Nights helped shape the European novel in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The chapter first explains how the French translation of the Nights and its popularity in Europe led to its incorporation in world literature, creating an enduring taste for “Orientalism” in many forms. It then considers how the Nights became integrated in modern Arabic literature and how Arabic novels inspired by it were used to criticize social conditions, dictatorial authority, and the lack of freedom of expression. It also discusses the Nights as a source of innovation for the trend of magical realism, as well as its role in the interaction between the Arab world and the West.

The transformation of reality and the Arabic novel's aesthetic response

1994 ◽  
Vol 57 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-112 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sabry Hafez
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Context ◽  
Social Role ◽  
Arab World ◽  
Arabic Literature ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Aesthetic Response ◽  
Literary Genres ◽  
The Social ◽  
Rapid Pace ◽  
Modern Arabic

The rapid pace of the change sweeping through the Arab world over the last few decades has profoundly affected both its various cultural products and its writers' perception of their national identity, social role and the nature of literature. The aim of this paper1 is to discuss the major changes in the sociopolitical reality of the Arab world, the cultural frame of reference and the responses of one of the major literary genres in modern Arabic literature: the novel. It is assumed here that there is a vital interaction between the novel and its socio-cultural context, in that novels encode within their very structure various elements of the social reality in which they appear and within whose constraints they aspire to play a role. Their generation of meaning is enmeshed in a variety of cultural, psychological and social processes, and their reception therefore brings into operation an array of experiences necessary for the interpretive act.

The city in modern Arabic literature

1986 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 193-202 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. C. Ostle
Keyword(s):  
World Literature ◽  
Limited Range ◽  
Arabic Literature ◽  
Implicit Contract ◽  
Literary Forms ◽  
Traditional Societies ◽  
History Of ◽  
Modern Arabic ◽  
The City

A superficial consideration of the history of Arabic literature impresses one by the remarkable longevity of literary forms: a qaṣīda written by the pre-Islamic poet Imru'l-Qays and many of those written by Aḥmad Shawqī who died in 1932 are eminently recognizable members of the same species. The system of prosody as codified by Khalīl b. Ahmad (d. A.D. 791) was still very much in force, and the thematic divisions into nasīb, wasf, and madīḥ or hijā' still had much in common. Similarly the maqāma form with its or ornate rhyming prose and limited range of stock characters was still being produced in Arabic at the turn of this century, and the links with the works of al-Hamadhānī (d. A.D. 1008) and al-Harīrī (d. A.D. 1122) are plain to behold and to hear. As with much world literature which is the product of ‘conservative’ or ‘traditional’ societies (for want of better terms), style is all. In thematic terms there is an implicit contract of understanding between the writer and the small, rarefied, élitist public. They know what to expect and the writer or performer delivers. The language, both in its form and its content, is a vehicle through which the relationships between writer or performer, and public or audience, are expressed.

Introduction

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Allan
Keyword(s):  
Education Reform ◽  
World Literature ◽  
The Other ◽  
Arabic Literature ◽  
Religious Institutions ◽  
Reading Public ◽  
History Of ◽  
Literary Publics ◽  
The One ◽  
Modern Arabic

This book raises a number of questions concerning the assumed universalism of world literature by analyzing the interwoven strands of modernization, literature, and secularism. It examines the putative opposition between a practice of reading based on memorization, embodiment, and recitation in Qur'anic schools and another practice based on reflection, critique, and judgment, increasingly integral to what gets defined as literacy in the modern Egyptian state. By taking colonial Egypt as a paradigmatic site from which to consider literary publics, textual cultures, and the history of reading, the book reveals two convergent and enmeshed narratives: on the one hand, the formation of a modern literary paradigm linked to education reform, the rise of a reading public and modern Arabic literature, and on the other hand, the story of what gets blotted out, religious institutions and practices that come to be understood as traditional.

Studying Modern Arabic Literature

2015 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Arab World ◽  
Public Intellectual ◽  
Arabic Literature ◽  
Global Culture ◽  
The West ◽  
Teaching And Research ◽  
The Face ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Modern Arabic

This book is devoted to the life and academic legacy of Mustafa Badawi who transformed the study of modern Arabic literature in the second half of the twentieth century. Prior to the 1960s the study of Arabic literature, both classical and modern, had barely been emancipated from the academic approaches of orientalism. The appointment of Badawi as Oxford University's first lecturer in modern Arabic literature changed the face of this subject as Badawi showed, through his teaching and research, that Arabic literature was making vibrant contributions to global culture and thought. Part biography, part collection of critical essays, this book celebrates Badawi's immense contribution to the field and explores his role as a public intellectual in the Arab world and the west.

Form and History in Modern Arabic Poetics

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Huda Fakhreddine
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Arab World ◽  
Prose Poem ◽  
Poetic Tradition ◽  
Literary Traditions ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Rich ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Fundamental Forces ◽  
Modern Arabic

Modern Arabic poetic forms developed in conversation with the rich Arabic poetic tradition, on one hand, and the Western literary traditions, primarily English and French, on the other. In light of the drastic social and political changes that swept the Arab world in the first half of the 20th century, Western influences often appear in the scholarship on the period to be more prevalent and operative in the rise of the modernist movement. Nevertheless, one of the fundamental forces that drove the movement from its early phases is its urgent preoccupation with the Arabic poetic heritage and its investment in forging a new relationship with the literary past. The history of poetic forms in the first half of the 20th century reveals much about the dynamics between margin and center, old and new, commitment and escapism, autochthonous and outside imperatives. Arabic poetry in the 20th century reflects the political and social upheavals in Arab life. The poetic forms which emerged between the late 1940s and early 1960s presented themselves as aesthetically and ideologically revolutionary. The modernist poets were committed to a project of change in the poem and beyond. Developments from the qas̩īdah of the late 19th century to the prose poem of the 1960s and the notion of writing (kitābah) after that suggest an increased loosening or abandoning of formal restrictions. However, the contending poetic proposals, from the most formal to the most experimental, all continue to coexist in the Arabic poetic landscape in the 21st century. The tensions and negotiations between them are what often lead to the most creative poetic breakthroughs.

New and modern history of the Arab world

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rouben Karapetyan
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Historical Development ◽  
Arab World ◽  
Arab Countries ◽  
Modern History ◽  
The Past ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
History Of ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
Oriental Studies

The textbook covers the main events and developments in the recent history of the Arab world. The key issues of the past and present of the major Arab countries are examined. The general patterns, main stages and peculiarities of the historical development of these countries are presented. The work is designed for students of the faculties of “Oriental Studies”, “History” and “International Relations”, as well as wide range of readers interested in the history of the Arab world.

scholarly journals Symbolism of Water in Classic and Modern Arabic Literature

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 258-265
Author(s):  
Mohammad Hamad
Keyword(s):  
Short Story ◽  
Arabic Literature ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Greek Mythology ◽  
Symbolic Meanings ◽  
Water Springs ◽  
Modern Arabic

Water in Arabic literature has literal and symbolic meanings. Water is one of the four elements in Greek mythology; life would be impossible without water and it is a synonym for life; life originated in water. Springs, wells, rain, seas, snow, and swamps are all associated with water. Each form of water may take on a different manifestation of the original from which it comes about. Arabic literature employs the element of water in poetry, the short story, and the novel. We find it in titles of poems: Unshudat al-matar (Hymn of the Rain) and Waj’ al-ma’ (The Pain of Water); and novels: Dhakirat al-ma’ (The Memory of Water); Taht al-matar (Under the Rain); Matar huzayran (June Rain); Al-Bahr khalf al-sata’ir (The Seas Behind the Curtains); Rahil al-bahr (Departure of the Sea); and many others. This study aims to answer the following questions: How does the element of water manifest in Arabic literature? What are the semantics and symbolism of the different forms of water in the literary imaginary? The study refers to six different significations for water in classical and modern Arabic literature: water as synonymous with life, purity and the revelation of truth, separation and death, fertility and sex, land and homeland, and talent and creativity.

Arabic Literature Goes Digital

2019 ◽  
pp. 28-47
Author(s):  
Teresa Pepe
Keyword(s):  
Arab World ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Arabic Literature ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Short History ◽  
Online Publishing ◽  
Internet Media ◽  
History Of ◽  
Publishing Houses

This chapter provides the historical context in which Egyptian blogs appeared. Drawing on ethnographic research on the Internet and in the Egyptian literary sphere, it shows that the introduction of Internet tools in the Arab world was soon accompanied by the emergence of numerous platforms for distributing and discussing Arabic literature, such as forums, literary websites, online publishing houses, the Internet Arab Writers Union, and so on. This atmosphere was conducive to the adoption of blogs as a platform for literary experimentation in Egypt. The chapter then focuses on blogging in the Arab world and in particular in Egypt, providing a short history of its development. It also addresses how Internet media have affected Arabic literature as a tool for publishing and distribution, as in the case of book-blogs.

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