Arabic Criticism Research Articles

Meditations on Arab History, Criticism, and Culture: Arab Civilization, Challenges and Responses: Studies in Honor of Constantine K. Zurayq. . George N. Atiyeh, Ibrahim M. Oweiss.

Meditations on Arab History, Criticism, and Culture: Arab Civilization, Challenges and Responses: Studies in Honor of Constantine K. Zurayq. . George N. Atiyeh, Ibrahim M. Oweiss.

Meditations on Arab History, Criticism, and Culture: Arab Civilization, Challenges and Responses: Studies in Honor of Constantine K. Zurayq, ed. by George N. Atiyeh and Ibrahim M. Oweiss

Meditations on Arab History, Criticism, and Culture: Arab Civilization, Challenges and Responses: Studies in Honor of Constantine K. Zurayq, ed. by George N. Atiyeh and Ibrahim M. Oweiss

The Soviet impact on modern Arabic literary criticism: Husayn Muruwwa's concept of the “new realism”

Two main factors have come to play a determining role in the mode of critical thinking that has dominated the modern Arabic literary scene. First, there has been the combined impact of political, social, cultural and literary changes of which modern Arabic literary criticism has been aware and to which it has responded by trying to develop gradually an approach both modern and Arab. Secondly, there has been the influence of foreign culture which works as a stimulant to the modern Arabic literary critic who strives -with varying degrees of success -to employ some of its notions and elements in his encounter with his own literature, which in turn has been exposed to the same influences. Thus modern Arabic critical discourse has been determined by a multitude of internal and external factors, each of which has exerted a measure of influence which varies according to the cultural formation of the critic, the type of literary discourse under consideration, and lastly the circumstances and conditions of the production of the critical text itself.1

Poetry in prose(al‐shi'r al‐manthūr)in modern Arabic literature

In Arabic literature there are clear cut definitions of poetry and prose (nathr), distinguishing them from one another, so that prose cannot be confused with poetry though it may have homoeoteleuton (saj'), rhythm, metaphor or any other poetical techniques except metre and the intention (qasd) to write poetry. This delimitation is due to the special attitude the Arabs have to their language in as much as the Qur'dn was written in it. The revelation of the Qyr'dn in a highly rhetorical, rhythmical and rhyming prose which slips from time to time into metrical rhythm,' and the fact that the Qur'dn itself contains a denial that it is poetry emphasized even more the distinction between prose and poetry. Therefore, the Arab critics who were theologians in the first place, in deference to the pronouncement of the Qur'dn on the matter, added the factor of intention to the definition of poetry.2 In the 'Abbasid period, prose became highly rhetorical. It even adopted the rhetorical techniques of poetry by introducing al-Badi' (the art of metaphors). The rhymed prose (saj') gradually took the place of the unornate ('dri) prose which was common in the first Islamic period. This highly rhetorical and rhythmical prose lapses sometimes into metric rhythm and was larded with verses quoted from famous poets or with new ones invented by the author befitting the occasion.3 This type of prose became more and more sophisticated in the various types of rasd'il (pl. of risdla, epistle), in which