ARABIC LITERATURE (FACULTY OF LETTERS AND HUMANITIES)
Year:2021 | Volume:13 | Issue:1|Papers Count:10

Michael Rifatter’ s semiotics is one of the approaches of literary criticism of the contemporary era. It offers a coherent framework for critique and analysis of poetry. The bases of this theory are the discovery of the semantic network of poetry based on interpretation according to the reader’ s literary ability and trying to discover the origin of the text by passing from heuristic reading to interpretive reading. This study tries to analyze the semiotic processes of Saadi Yousef’ s poem “ Khoz Vardat al-Salje Khoz al-Kairouaniat” based on Rifatter’ s semiotic theory in order to reach the hidden layers of the text. The heuristic reading of this poem expresses the dramatic story of the poet’ s grieving soul as he is on a train which journeys to distant lands and takes him farther away from his homeland. But the retroactive reading of the poem shows that it has five accumulations and a descriptive system. By going from the quote level (appearance) to the higher level, by finding the codes in the poem as well as the ungrammaticalities and semiotics for each of them, the authors have found explanation for the main subject (hypogram) and the effect of the semantic structure of the text (matrix). The analysis of this poem shows that it is the product of expanding several matrices such as despair and sorrow, exile and homesickness, love for the homeland, oppression and repression, domination of foreigners over the poet’ s homeland, invitation to fighting back, portraying the plundered Iraq, and disappointment with the present situation.

One of the ways to achieve the main meaning and intention of the narrator of a text is the analysis of its words from a semantic point of view. Semantics is one of the approaches dealing with language and can be used to find a reliable relation between language, outside experiences, thoughts, and social experiences. Understanding the meaning of a word requires the use of various semantic methods through which it is possible to accurately describe the meaning of that word. In the conceptual system of Nahj al-Balaghah, “ science” is used as one of the key words. The present research has studied the meaning of science in Nahj al-Balaghah from the perspective of reciprocal and semantic relations in order to gain a more accurate and deeper understanding of the meaning of this word. The result of this research shows that Imam Ali uses words such as “ ignorance, ” “ conjecture, ” and “ whimsy” in semantic opposition to science, and words such as “ contemplation, ” “ thinking, ” and “ reasoning” in a relation of lexical synonymy with science; thus the meaning of science is extracted. This, in addition to having a great impact on aesthetics in explaining concepts and clarifying meanings, has also led to the development of the semantic system of that era, which is due to the eloquence and rhetoric of these texts. The way these words replace science indicates the breadth of the semantic domain of “ science” in Nahj al-Balaghah; on the one hand, there are the owners and possessors of knowledge who, with correct understanding and knowledge, reach certainty and heartfelt assurance and are guided to the right path. On the other hand, there are people who do not know the truth and are confused and misled by suspicion, doubt and ignorance. The difference between these two groups of human beings depends on the epistemelogical meaning that is understood from science.

Narratives are widely employed in poetry in order to improve the formal structure and to convey deep layers of semantic connotations through defamiliarization in the reader’ s mind. This scheme is one of the most prominent components in the integration and structure of Abd al-Wahhab al-Bayati’ s poetry, the well-known contemporary Arab poet. Engaging narrative techniques and the creative use of storytelling has bestowed an ingenious composition and an ambiguous complexity to the narration and verbal construction of his work “ Symphony of the Gypsy, ” and this makes the poem potentially more interpretable and more decipherable. The narration of the poem is composed of two parts, of which the latter shines light on the questions and ambiguities aroused in the former. This study is aimed at reviewing the elements of narration in “ Symphony of the Gypsy” in order to analyze the aesthetics of storytelling and the poet’ s use of artistic devices in the poem. The results show that although the elements of narrative in “ Symphony of the Gypsy” are not completely in line with the poetics of narration, the narrative of this poem has been constructed artistically. In “ Symphony of the Gypsy, ” Bayati has sought to depict the familiar wandering of a gypsy as a symbolic representation of pains of the mankind throughout the history. He does so by means of aesthetics of narrative poetry such as the plot, characters, visualizations, dialogues, perspective and the theme, through entangling the abstract and the concrete, through intertwining the past and the present. Summoning legends and archetypes, with the symbolic characters in his poem assisting him (including the gypsy, the virgin and the foreteller), Al-Bayati further mystifies and universalizes his narration, generalizing the gypsy’ s sorrow to the collective grief.

Emotion is an important element in poetry. Other elements including imagery must be at its service, since their value is due to emotion. Adonis, as one of the most innovative contemporary Arab poets, is concerned with humanitarian affairs and problems. Love for the homeland and brotherhood are of great importance in his poetry, especially in his Palestinian poems. On the other hand, his poetry is full of poetic imagery. The question raised here is to what extent the Palestinian poems of Adonis, as a sample of all his poems, carry emotions and to what extent the images in his poems can convey these emotions to the reader. The analysis of this hypothesis is important because some of the critics believe that Adonis’ s poetry lacks emotion. On the other hand, there is a consensus on the poetic imagery of Adonis. Thus, this article analyzes the emotions of hope, despair, love, sadness and sorrow in the Palestinian poetry of Adonis, and studies their correspondence to the images of the poetry. The results demonstrate that Adonis’ poems, like other modern poems, have deep and original emotions, and that since the poet’ s emotions and thought are intertwined, not exaggerated like romantic and classic poets, these emotions seem intangible and ambiguous. Adonis, using imageray, especially symbolic ones like mystery and myth which need more analysis, conveys human emotional experiences, the source of all of which is love for the homeland and fellow human beings. This results in awakening the conscience of the Arab people and inspires them with hope.

Decentralization in referring images is a kind of visual decentralization in which the child makes comparisons by referring to the images after or before the current image. These comparisons distract him/her from the current image and make him/her refer to other components and dimensions of the images or text of the story. The use of visual decentralization techniques brings the child closer to the decentralization stage. In the present study, which aims to analyze and discover the role of referring images in the mental decentralization of the child, the referring visual decentralization techniques used in ten stories written by Yaghoub al-Sharoni (1931-2017) are examined. In order to achieve the goal of the research and an appropriate result, first, the techniques used in the statistical population are divided into 7 categories: image-text alignment, self-reference, two-part images, prognosis, similarity, long shot and close-up, superficiality and profundity. Then, all the images of these stories that are in line with the subject, goals and questions of the research are collected. The article tries to find out which type of referring visual decentralization has the highest frequency in the selected stories of Al-Sharoni, and what Al-Sharoni’ s goal was in using the techniques of referring visual decentralization in his stories. The results indicate that there are 232 cases of referring decentralization techniques in the stories, that is approximately 30 techniques in each story, which is a very high frequency. Among the techniques used, image-text alignment have the highest frequency in the stories (%40 and %28 respectively). The frequent use of the image-text alignment technique is due to the fact that it is the most appropriate and comprehensible decentralization technique for the child since it engages, dynamizes, and develops the child’ s mental creativity. It is also found that stimulating creativity and mental dynamism of the child, making the stories attractive through changing its usual form, preventing his/her mind from superficial perception, and making him/her discover the underlying and complex layers of the story are the main goals of Yaghoub al-Sharoni in using the referring-decentralizing images.

The study of the vocabulary of poetry is one of the approaches used to evaluate a poetic style. Along with other layers of stylistics, namely syntax, rhetoric, and phonetics, it plays an essential role in analyzing the poets’ way of expressing themselves, and in studying a historical era or literary school. Since words form the structure of language, the study of the diction of literary texts is essential in understanding poetic style and language. Therefore, words should be considered the first tool that embodies poetic emotions and bring the poet into contact with the reader. Due to the importance of this linguistic element in literature, the present study tries to examine the linguistic layers in the poetry collection Sama fi Khozeh (Sky in a Helmet) by Adnan al-Sayegh, a contemporary Iraqi poet known for his resistance literature. The article tries to discover the connection of this layer with the content and form of the text, and the relationship of words with each other, and to determine the function of frequent poetic words. Based on the analysis conducted in this research, the words of this poetry collection have been selected in an entirely purposeful manner so that they correspond with the poet’ s surroundings, and this is reflected in the title of the collection, too. The diction shows the contradiction of the spiritual (internal) and material (external) worlds through the centrality of the keywords “ sky” and “ helmet. ” This has created a dialectic of endlessness and limitation. On the other hand, new lexical combinations have caused individuality and stylistic emphasis, and have given a different structure and a distinct style to the poems. Moreover, the concrete forms of words have been juxtaposed with their auditory and visual forms in an artistic manner.

Mohammad Momen Jazayeri Shirazi Hindi (1074-1130 AH) was a prolific writer of the late Safavid period. His literary works amount to 39 books and treatises, most of which are in the form of manuscripts which have been neglected by researches. Few sources can be found on his biography and life except for those gathered and written by Ayatollah Marashi Najafi or some scattered notes written by himself in his works. The book Khazanet al-Khial (Treasure of Imagination) is one of his valuable works. It touches on various subjects such as literature, wisdom, sermons, debates, proverbs, history, and biographies. In this article, we examine the type of prose and writing style along with other literary features of this work according to the common literature of the Safavid era. The style of the book is rhymed prose, and it is replete with figures of speech, both verbal and abstract, which has made it look like the technical prose of maqama. However, despite the multiplicity of literary devices, it has fluent and understandable prose, and owing to the variety of subjects, it is not boring but fascinates the reader. One of its differences with maqama written by authors like Hamedani and Hariri is that each chapter has main and minor titles. Haj Mohammad Momen has derived a part of the contents of his book from the Quran, the hadiths, and writings of the early and late men of letters. Hence, we can find many instances of borrowing, adaptation, reiteration, and allusion to verses, hadiths, poems, and sayings everywhere in his book. Complete and sometimes calligraphic manuscripts of the book are available in Iran, along with two incomplete copies.

Mohammad Shahrour’ s Quranic research project seeks to establish an interaction between the Quran and human knowledge and mentality, and to separate the Quranic understanding from the boundaries of past readings and interpretations, which sometimes take on an aura of holiness and avoidance of criticism. The subject of inheritance and division of the deceased’ s estate is stated in verse eleven of Surah An-Nisa. The understanding of the Quranic commentators and Muslims of this verse is based on the premise that the share of a son’ s inheritance is twice as that of a daughter’ s. But Mohammad Shahrour’ s method of Quranic study, which is generally based on the analysis of linguistic signs in the context of the interpretation of the Quran, reveals a new and different understanding of this verse. According to this understanding, firstly, the verse is applied where the children of the deceased are a combination of daughters and sons. Secondly, there are three scenarios for the formula for dividing the inheritance, and only in one case is the share of inheritance of sons twice as the share of inheritance of daughters. This means that, firstly, we have two sets in the division of inheritance called the set of sons and the set of daughters, and if the children of the deceased are all daughters or all sons, the inheritance is divided equally among them. Secondly, the share of individuals in inheritance depends on the number of members of the female group and its ratio to the male group, for which the Quranic text has set three limits. Shahrour’ s attitude in the field of Quranic studies, on the one hand, breaks down traditional thinking in this field, and on the other hand, states constructive solutions to solve the problems and challenges of advancing Quranic understanding.

Exile is a concept that appears in the language of the poet, after experience of lack of freedom and lack of physical connection with the homeland. Izz al-Din al-Monaserah is a poet whose exile gave a special structure to his poetic language. Exile in an invisible dialectic intensifies the poet’ s language and it is this fact that leads to the production of a particular language. This article tries to determine the number of Monaserah’ s poems that have exile as their thematic element. Our Statistical data and diagrams proved that the use of the concept of exile in his poetry is the most frequent when genocide and the massacre of Palestinian refugees take place in Tal Zatar and Al-Qarnatina. Here, a significant relationship between poetic language and reality is proved. The metaphysics of Palestine in exile has replaced its physics and the poet’ s mental-spiritual living place. Homeland is not just a concept, but a formidable metaphysics of ideas and concepts that completely dominates the poet’ s mind. He is not merely in physical exile, but his essence his thought are forced into exile too. Exile is part of the life of Palestinian poets, and and this concept is represented in Monaserah’ s poetry through imagery. To determine how this concept appears in the poetic language of Monaserah is a necessity since the comprehension of his poetry depends on it. Rebellion against occupation and fighting for a dignified life are among the causes of the poet’ s exile. Living as in exile in one’ s homeland and living in exile with love and sorrow of the homeland give birth to the poetic language that we see in his literature of exile.

The correct translation and interpretation of Quranic verses is strongly dependent on the observance of the principles and rules of Arabic literature. One of these principles is the points that must be considered in order to identify the missing pronoun reference. The necessity of this issue becomes clear when, by changing the reference of a pronoun, the meaning and purpose of a verse completely changes and the audience fails to understand the correct message and purpose of the verse. Not paying attention to the correct meaning of the words is the most important cause of this error. It seems that the feminine plural pronoun in the verse 35 of the surah “ Al-Waqiah” has caused such a mistake, and a suitable reference has not been chosen for this pronoun; because most of the commentators and translators of the Quran, based on the interpretations of the verse that have no credibility or because they have taken the ironic meaning of the words, assert that this pronoun refers to “ heavenly women and wives. ” However, according to the two principles of “ the need for clear and obvious evidences to remove the pronoun reference” and “ the precedence of the mentioned reference” , this pronoun reference is not correct. The present article aims to find a suitable reference for the feminine plural pronoun in this verse. Therefore, by collecting library information and through critical methods and using interpretive and literary sources, it is concluded that in order to create a correct semantic match between the verse under discussion and to be in line with the main purpose of the surah, it is better consider the literal meanings of the words. Therefore, the blessings mentioned in the previous verses (fruits, running water and expanded carpets) must be considered as a reference for the pronoun.