Rereading Identity Cards: The Early Anticolonial Poetics of Mahmoud Darwish and their Hebrew Afterlives By Netanel Haim Silverman A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations University of Toronto @ Copyright by Netanel Silverman 2019 Rereading Identity Cards: The Early Anticolonial Poetics of Mahmoud Darwish and their Hebrew Afterlives Netanel Silverman Doctor of Philosophy Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations University of Toronto 2019 Abstract In 1964, Mahmoud Darwish, the late national Palestinian poet, published his canonical poem "Identity Card". The poem, constructing an essentialized Arab identity, has since enjoyed a prolific afterlife in both modern Arabic poetry, and Israeli literary discourse. Although it had become an instant 'hit' with Arab crowds, Darwish himself disavowed it at a later stage, refusing to read it for its essentialist perception of identity. Widely reviewed by scholars, the poem has still been scarcely read in its original context, as the closing poem of Darwish's first ever published collection, Olive Leaves (1964). Unlike the essentialist poetics of "Identity Card", the reading of the Olive Leaves poems reveals a complex poetic subjectivity embedded in a network of intertextual references. These in turn engage in a vital dialogue with the anti-colonial moment and poetic innovations prevailing in modern Arabic poetics from the 1950's and on. Through the rereading of the collection's poems and the exploration of Darwish's own theory of poetics, I venture to re-accord these early poetics their deserved place within modern Arabic poetry, echoing Darwish's own assertion that Palestinian poetry, "is neither rival nor an alternative to modern Arabic poetry, it is an integral part of it, a creek within the creeks of the great river". ii The dissertation then proceeds to explore the Hebrew afterlife of "Identity Card", focusing on two realms: Translation and Mizrahi poetry. Through various public debates and several of the poem's mistranslations, I explore the difficulties of 'digesting' the poem and the manner in which Darwish's presence evokes an ambivalent sense of anxiety, forcing Hebrew culture to face its haunting colonial past and presence. For Mizrahi poetics, on the other hand, Darwish offers a powerful model of self-assertion, opening up a new poetic space where a Mizrahi poetics of deconstruction takes place. This new space is mainly explored through the close reading of Sami Shalom-Chetrit's poem: "A Mural With no Wall: A Qasida for Mahmoud Darwish". iii Acknowledgments This dissertation wouldn’t have been completed if it were not for a number of people. First, I would like to deeply thank the dear members of my dissertation committee. Harry fox for his warm guidance, and for unforgettable poetry study sessions from which I benefited immensely. Wisely, you knew when to provide me with constructive criticism and when to afford me independence and freedom, teaching me to find my own voice, and trust my own abilities. Above all, you and Tirzah made me feel at home away from home. Jeannie Miller's kind and caring mentorship helped me overcome the many challenges of writing. I am truly grateful for her endless dedication in reading my work, her endurance of my English, her constant challenging remarks and her striving to improve the quality of the dissertation. You taught me a valuable lesson in professionalism and in the meaning of true tough love. I thank Haytham Bahoora for his rich and sensitive input and for helping me better understand the modern Arabic context of Darwish's writing. Your generous, consistent, caring remarks were a great source of motivation for me. Thank you, Yigal Nizrri, for the immediate sense of intimacy and mutual understanding I felt every time I stepped into your office. I am grateful for your willingness to read my work and for your supportive and helpful feedback. More than once you made me quickly realize things, which I would have probably not realized for a long time on my own. A special gratitude goes to a number of additional people within the Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations department for their ongoing support. To Walid Saleh for his guidance and constant encouragement of my project. To Tirzah Meacham for her wisdom and for the care she afforded me during the years of my studies. To Anna Sousa for her endless patience and good will, for answering all of my pettiest questions, and for her diligent administrative work behind the scenes. iv I thank the SGS at the University of Toronto, as well as The Ontario Trillium Scholarship (OTS) for their generous funding of this research. My special gratitude goes to the Anne Tannenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies and to the Collaborative Program in Jewish Studies for their generous ongoing support of my project. A number of other people deserve mentioning here: My parents Marc and Orna Silverman for their unequivocal support of my studies, and for their unconditional love. Special thanks to my father for his attentive readings of my initial thoughts and other sections of the dissertation. My gratitude goes to Hanni Amit-Kochavi for her continuous support and valuable advice. To my good friend Guy Elhanan for being an active audience in our joint, drunken sessions of reading Darwish's poetry, and to my dear friend and study colleague Omri Greenberg for patiently guiding me in my many moments of academic bewilderment. Last but not least, I thank my dear family and especially my wife Netta, who agreed to willingly join me on my voyage to study overseas, literary carrying our children upon her shoulders enduring the many hours of my absence. v . Table of Contents Abstract .......................................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgments ........................................................................................................................ iv Table of Contents .................................................................................................................... vi Introduction ....................................................................................................................................1 The Afterlife of "Identity Card" .............................................................................................1 The Original Context of "Identity Card" ...............................................................................5 The Objectives of the Dissertation ...........................................................................................7 Re-historicizing the Olive Leaves Collection ....................................................................7 Exploring the Hebrew Afterlives of "Identity Card" .....................................................9 The Place of Olive Leaves and "Identity Card" within Modern Arabic Scholarship .......10 The Portrayal of Olive Leaves within Darwish's Early Poetry ....................................10 Marginal Readings of the Olive Leaves poems versus Central Readings of "Identity Card" ....................................................................................................12 Fahri Saleh’s call for a Rereading of Palestinian Resistance Poetry ..........................16 "A Mural with no Wall": Sami Shalom-Chetrit's Qasida for Mahmoud Darwish ..........20 The Anti-Hegemonic Poetics of Mizrahi Literature .....................................................20 Darwish's Place within the Discourse of Mizrahi Poetics ............................................23 "A Mural with no Wall", Shalom-Chetrit's Qasida to Mahmoud Darwish ..............24 Reading Darwish's Poetry through Theories of Colonialism and Postcolonialism...........27 The Outline of the Dissertation ..............................................................................................30 Chapter 1: The Birth of a New Poetic Palestinian Subjectivity in Darwish's First Collection: Awraq al-Zaytun (Olive Leaves). .........................................................................34 vi Save us from this Harsh Love: Darwish's Early Poetic Agenda – Between Iltizam and Fetish .................................................................................................................................34 A Radical Kind of Iltizam ................................................................................................36 Awraq al-Zaytun (Olive Leaves): A Declarative Moment in Palestinian Poetry ...............43 Darwish's Criticism of Collective Realism ....................................................................44 Old Poetry Versus New: The Anxiety of the Modern ...................................................48 To the Reader: The Basic Features of Darwish’s New Poetic Palestinian Subjectivity ....52 A Smoky Landscape ........................................................................................................53 The Assertion of a New Historic “I”: Bearing the Crosses of Wrath .........................55 No More Tarab .................................................................................................................59 The end of the poem: Melancholy and Fire ...................................................................60 Chapter 2 - Infiltrating Western Canons: Bialik's "To the Bird" and Eliot's "The Waste Land": Intertextuality and Parody in Awraq al-Zaytun (Olive Leaves) ...............64