A Study of the Dramatic Structure in the Poetry of Mahmoud Darwish

A Study of the Dramatic Structure in the Poetry of

Mahmoud Darwish from 1967 to 1987

A thesis submitted to the University of Manchester for the degree of Doctor of

Philosophy in the Faculty of Humanities

2019

Anas A. I. Alhumam

School of Arts, Languages and Cultures

Table of Contents

Abstract ...... 5

Declaration ...... 7

Transliteration Chart ...... 9

Translation and Transliteration Statements ...... 12

Acknowledgements ...... 13

Dedication ...... 15

Chapter One: Introduction ...... 16

1.1 Focus of this Research ...... 16

1.2 Rationale for this Thesis ...... 17

1.3 Aims of this Thesis ...... 18

1.4 Research Questions ...... 18

1.5 Introduction ...... 19

1.6 A Brief Biography of Darwish’s Life and Work ...... 21

1.7 Historical Context ...... 23

1.7.1 An Overview of Palestine in History ...... 23

1.7.2 The Impact of the 1967 Defeat on Arab Political Ideology and the Palestinian

Case ...... 30

1.8 Palestinian Literature ...... 35

1.9 The Transformations of Arabic and Palestinian Literature between 1967 and 1986 ...... 41

1.9.1 Resurgence of Steadfastness and Insistency ...... 41

1.9.2 New Poetic and Dramatic Structures ...... 48

1.10 Definitions of Poetic Drama and Dramatic Structure in Poetry ...... 53

1.11 The Contribution of this Thesis ...... 58

1.12 Structure of this Thesis ...... 60

1.13 Conclusion ...... 61

Chapter Two: Literature Review...... 64

2.1 Introduction ...... 64

2.2 Critical Studies on Mahmoud Darwish ...... 65

2.2.1 Renewal of the Poetic Experience: The theme of Exile and Identity in Darwish’s Work ...... 65

2.2.2 Previous Studies on the Use of Dramatic Structure in the Work of Darwish ...... 81

2.3 Methodology ...... 87

2.3.1 Theoretical Framework ...... 87

2.3.2 Selection of Works by Mahmoud Darwish ...... 95

2.4 Conclusion ...... 97

Chapter Three: The Diaspora Experience and the Loss of Homeland in the Poetry of

Darwish ...... 99

3.1 Introduction ...... 99

3.2 The Definition of Diaspora ...... 101

3.3 The Palestinian Displacement and Diaspora ...... 105

3.4 The Conceptualisation of Diaspora and the Loss of Homeland in Darwish’s Work ... 115

3.5 Conclusion ...... 137

Chapter Four: The Post-Naksa Phase and the Conflict between Individual and

Collective Memories in the Work of Darwish ...... 140

4.1 Introduction ...... 140

4.2 From History to Memory: The Conceptions of Old Memory and New Memory ...... 141

4.3 The Representation of National Memory and the Class Struggle in the Palestinian Case

...... 146

4.4 The Transformation of Memory Post-Naksa and the Battle of Individual and Collective

Memories in the Work of Darwish ...... 159

4.5 Conclusion ...... 182

Chapter Five: The Aesthetic Characteristics of Narrative and Dramatic Language in

Darwish’s Poetry: Intertextuality, Heteroglossia and Dialogism ...... 184

5.1 Introduction ...... 184

5.2 Dialogism in the Novel and the Comparison between Poetic and Novelistic Discourses

...... 185

5.3 The Concepts of Intertextuality and Heteroglossia in the Work of Darwish ...... 193

5.4 The Formulation of Myths and Historical Symbols in Darwish’s Work ...... 210

Conclusion ...... 225

Chapter Six: Conclusion ...... 228

Bibliography ...... 236

Word Count 75,080

Abstract

This thesis aims to examine the poetry of the well-known Palestinian poet, Mahmoud

Darwish (1941-2008). It focuses on the use of the dramatic structure in his work with reference to major historic events that occurred between 1967 and 1987, namely the 1967

Naksa, the 1982 Siege of Beirut, the 1982 Sabra and Shatila Massacre, and the 1987 First

Intifada.

When combined with his experience of exile and diaspora, these tragic events have had a major influence on his poetry, his own cultural identity, his memory, and his voice. These events are also turning points in the development of the renowned poet’s work and have inspired him to use new themes, styles, structures, and viewpoints, including the use of the dramatic structure, in his poetry.

This thesis endeavours to explain the use of the dramatic structure in Darwish’s work displaying the dialogues, scenes, anecdotes, and different voices, as well as intertextuality with other religious, historical and literary texts. In addition, the thesis explains the concepts of dialogism, intertextuality and social heteroglossia in his work and addresses the issue of interplay between narrative and lyric discourse in his long poems.

This thesis will also explore the themes of cultural identity and difference, past memory, new memory and the subaltern voices in Darwish’s work, with emphasis on the transformations of memory in his post-Naksa work. It will explain how he presents the counter- memory/discourse that is against colonial discourse and memory. Furthermore, the thesis addresses the poet’s dialogue when he speaks of the battle of memory: whether to recall the

Palestinian (collective) national memory or discontinue it.

Furthermore, the thesis analyses the development of Darwish’s own cultural identity and discourse post-Naksa and the renewal of national identity in order to configure a mixture of identities and confirm the ambivalence of colonised culture that is unfixed and changeable. It will explore how Darwish attempts to re-construct the (Palestinian) national myth, memory and identity in contemporary context through his post-Naksa work.

Declaration

That no portion of the work referred to in the thesis has been submitted in support of an application for another degree or qualification of this or any other university or other institute of learning.

i. The author of this thesis (including any appendices and/or schedules to this thesis) owns certain copyright or related rights in it (the “Copyright”) and s/he has given The University of Manchester certain rights to use such Copyright, including for administrative purposes. ii. Copies of this thesis, either in full or in extracts and whether in hard or electronic copy, may be made only in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (as amended) and regulations issued under it or, where appropriate, in accordance with licensing agreements which the University has from time to time. This page must form part of any such copies made. iii. The ownership of certain Copyright, patents, designs, trademarks and other intellectual property (the “Intellectual Property”) and any reproductions of copyright works in the thesis, for example graphs and tables (“Reproductions”), which may be described in this thesis, may not be owned by the author and may be owned by third parties. Such Intellectual Property and Reproductions cannot and must not be made available for use without the prior written permission of the owner(s) of the relevant Intellectual Property and/or Reproductions. iv. Further information on the conditions under which disclosure, publication and commercialisation of this thesis, the Copyright and any Intellectual Property and/or Reproductions described in it may take place is available in the University IP Policy (see http://documents.manchester.ac.uk/DocuInfo.aspx?DocID=2442 0), in any relevant Thesis restriction declarations deposited in the University Library, The University Library’s regulations (see http://www.library.manchester.ac.uk/about/regulations/) and in The University’s policy on Presentation of Theses.

Transliteration Chart

A- Consonants:

ﻥ n ﺀ ʼ

ﻩ h ﺐ b

ﻭ w ﺖ t

ﻱ y ﺚ th

ﺝ j

ﺡ ḥ

ﺥ kh

ﺩ d

ﺫ dh

ﺭ r

ﺯ z

ﺱ s

ﺵ sh

ﺹ ṣ

ﺽ ḍ

ﻁ ṭ

ﻅ ẓ

ﻉ ‛

ﻍ gh

ﻑ f

ﻕ q

ﻙ k

ﻝ l

ﻡ m

ﺓ a (in construct state

at)

B- Long Vowels:

ﻯ - ﺁ ā

ﻮ ū

ﻴ Ī

C- Short Vowels:

ﻙَ a

ﻙُ u

ﻙِ i

D- Doubled:

ﻱ (iyy (final form ī

ﻭ (uww (final form ū

F- Diphthongs

ﻲَ ay

ﻭَ aw

Translation and Transliteration Statements

That all translations from Arabic are my one unless otherwise noted. I also bring Arabic vision when a text does not translate and I will do so through the thesis.

There are some terms of relatively common English usage including the name of the main subject will not be transliterated – if indeed they are not to be transliterated. However, correct

Arabic transliteration of these names will be remained when it is part of a transliterated phase in Arabic.

Acknowledgements

I would like to express my sincerest appreciation and gratitude to my supervisor, Professor

Zahia Smail Salhi for her great support, comments, guidance and sympathy. I have had an excellent learning experience over the past three years under her supervision. I would also like to thank Professor Smail Salhi for helping me to map the theoretical framework components of this thesis through use of new theories and perspectives to analyse the work of the poet, Darwish.

I am highly indebted to my second supervisor, Dr Dalia Mostafa who has provided me with useful comments, encouragement and advice, and for helping me to improve my own critical reading and analysis. I also want to express my sincere appreciation to Professor Margaret

Littler for providing insightful feedback and suggestions to improve the textual analysis of

Darwish’s work.

My thanks go to my mother for her invocations, support and encouragement to continue in higher education and to work towards a doctorate degree. I would also like to thank my dear brothers Khalid and Ziad for providing financial supports when I most needed it and their thoughtfulness, advice and encouragement, and for helping me to de-stress when I reach out to them.

I wish to offer my heartfelt gratitude to my lovely wife, Marwah. Without her love, care, continual support and her sympathetic ear I could not have completed this thesis. I am also extremely grateful to my parents-in-law; uncle Mohammed and aunt Ahlam for taking care for our child Abdullah, and for raising him in a great environment of over the past three years whilst his mother and I have been abroad studying for the PhD.

I must also offer sincere thanks to King Faisal University for granting me a scholarship and for the funding of my PhD. Finally, I must thank the Saudi cultural Bureau I am extremely grateful for their staff’s support and advice over the years.

Dedication

I dedicate the thesis to my dear mother, my beloved wife, Marwah, and my beautiful son,

Abdullah, who have supported and encouraged me to achieve this success.

Chapter One: Introduction

1.1 Focus of this Research

This study examines the Palestinian poet, Mahmoud Darwish (1941-2008), and use of the theme of dramatic structure in his work. In particular, it analyses his work within the historical context of the events that took place between 1967 and 1987. Darwish’s career evidently transformed through developments in the themes, styles, and views within his work. This thesis will examine how historical and political changes in the Arab world influenced these transformations.

There will be a focus on certain historical events that occurred between 1967 and 1987, including the 1967 Naksa, the 1982 Siege of Beirut, the 1982 Sabra and Shatila Massacre, and the First Intifada in 1987. 1 These events all occurred in a critical period spanning 20 years, and their influence on Darwish’s work becomes apparent when observing the changes in the themes, styles, and structure. These distinguishing characteristics of Darwish’s work have never been rigid and unchanging. The thesis will also analyse the meanings and thematic structures of Darwish’s poetry and how this dramatic construction relates to the poet’s life. In doing so, it will highlight the relationship between Darwish and key Palestinian issues, paying attention to the way he humanises the political events through his poetic and dialogical discourse. Furthermore, the research explores the dialogic language and discourse in the works of Darwish in terms of representing different voices, thoughts and speeches and how his discourse encounters colonial discourse and claim of (Palestinian) national identity, memory and history, as well as his own identity against colonial culture and dominance.

1 I wrote these historical events (Naksa, Siege of Beirut, Sabra and Shatila Massacre, and the First Intifada) in italics because they are landmarks in Darwish’s work, which developed in different phases and distinguished his work by the use of the dramatic structure and the development his own cultural identity. Throughout this thesis I will write these words in italics.

1.2 Rationale for this Thesis

Whilst the focus of many critical studies on the work of Mahmoud Darwish is on national identity and the loss of homeland, there is a noticeable lack of literature or studies which analyse the development of his work including the use of dramatic structure in the representation of various voices.

Darwish’s poetic experience is unique due to its artistic value, simple expressions, deep themes, and an inexhaustible production. These qualities set him apart from his peers in the modernist poetry movement, as he tried to break the cultural and political siege. This study focuses on the dramatic structure in the work of Darwish and investigates the impact of the historical events which took place from 1967 through to 1987, this will include exploring the cultural and poetic developments in his writing. The introduction of dramatic structure also gave a new dimension to the poet’s career in which he shifted from focussing on one subjective voice to become more objective by including various voices through a dialogic style in terms of displaying social dialogues (different voices and speeches/genres). This dramatic structure gave his work the possibility to configure the human experience that articulates not only the struggle and resistance of the Palestinian people, but also the socio- cultural impacts of colonial powers. What is more, the use of dramatic poetry in Darwish’s work draws a clear link between poetry and other prosaic genres in its use of dialogue and polyphony, integrating these genres. Resultantly, the barriers between poetry and prose are seemingly removed. This idea of mixing poetic and prose genres and discourses into one text helps Darwish to reconsider national identity as well as his own identity and articulate the voice of his people who tell stories of a marginalised group/people’s resistance and voices against colonialism.

1.3 Aims of this Thesis

This study aims to:

A- Examine the development of Mahmoud Darwish’s poetry in terms of themes, structures, and viewpoints. In particular, it will consider the experiences of diaspora and how these are linked to the new themes and styles in the work of Darwish and how they re-shape of his cultural identity.

B- Examine various dramatic characteristics employed in Mahmoud Darwish's poems, such as myths, symbols, dialogues, scenes, polyphony, and textual expressions.

C- Evaluate how the dramatic system can embody viewpoints, both first-person and more objective views which show multiple voices and represent Darwish’s discourse who speaks of marginal group’s voices and identity against colonialism.

D- Conduct an analytical study of these dramatic and narrative structures through the formation of lingual and discursive constructions of Darwish’s poems.

1.4 Research Questions

This study will examine the following questions:

A- How do the themes, styles, structures, and viewpoints in Mahmoud Darwish’s work

develop through various phases, particularly during the period between 1967 and 1987,

and what are the impacts of the 1967 Naksa on Darwish to drive him to focus more on the

development of cultural ideas and literary language?

B- In what ways does the diasporic experience impact the work of Darwish to transform to

new poetic creativity and use new themes, structures and viewpoints and especially lead

to the use of dramatic structure?

C- Why is the study of dramatic structure key to our understanding of Darwish’s poetry?

D- In what ways does the work of memory in the poetry of Darwish reconstruct and develop

the concepts of national memory and his cultural identity?

E- In what ways does the work of Darwish incorporate lyric poetry into narrative discourse

as well as the dramatic structures and techniques?

1.5 Introduction

In this introduction, I aim to place the life and works of Mahmoud Darwish within its historical context by recounting a number of historical events which occurred from 1948 through to 1967. These are events that culminated in the defeat of the Arabs in the Six-Day

War of 1967. Additionally, this analysis takes into account the politics of Arab nations, the effects of the defeat of the Palestinians, and the resulting development of certain themes and styles in Arabic literature. This analysis, more specifically, focusses on the work of Darwish in its early stages, at a time when there were evident indications of clear links to Arab nationalism (Nasserist ideas) and a political ideology in light of the Palestinian issue and

Arab unity.

It will examine the significance of these events for writers and poets of present day, and how such events functioned as a turning point in Darwish’s career, which developed new structures, themes, and viewpoints. The chapter begins by providing a brief biography of

Mahmoud Darwish. Followed by a review of the history of Palestine. This is important as it allows us to identify how the structure and themes of Palestinian literature, in general, transformed and how Mahmoud Darwish’s work, in particular, underwent significant developments and transformations through the watershed after the war of 1967.

There are evident transformations in Darwish’s poetry, especially between the years 1967 and

1987, and these changes coincide with a number of historical events that occurred after 1967.

This chapter intends to focus on the 1967 Naksa, 1982 Siege of Beirut, 1982 Sabra and

Shatila Massacre, and the First Intifada in 1987. These events were all turning points in the poetry of Mahmoud Darwish and they greatly influenced his new themes, styles, structures, and viewpoints, something highlighted by the emergence of the dramatic structure in his poetry.

This chapter will examine a number of studies by Palestinian authors on the topics of pre and post-Naksa literature, as the 1967 Naksa largely affected Palestinian literature. These studies are to be considered in the context of Palestinian history and literature. The works of

Palestinian authors have paid close attention to the growing sense of resistance among

Palestinians and their patriotism since the 1948 Nakba. Moreover, post-Naksa Palestinian writers often raised the question of Palestine being considered an independent state, despite the Palestinians’ loss of their homeland, and the international refusal to consider it a nation.

This chapter will go on to contemplate the impact of the historical events which occurred between 1967 and 1987 on Arabic and Palestinian literature, especially as seen in the work of

Mahmoud Darwish. It also focusses on how these events led to novel forms of writing in terms of themes and structures, including the dramatic structure in poetry, which is a form of poetry consisting of narrative and dramatic qualities where the dialogue and multiple-voices are borrowed from novels and plays. This chapter defines the dramatic features used in

Darwish’s poetry and delineates its dissimilarities to the poetic drama genre, as well as comparing the use of poetic drama and dramatic poetry. It will then clarify these concepts and their significance in Darwish’s poetry, as well as the reasons why many contemporary poets would have applied the new structure in their work.

A number of differences between poetic drama and the dramatic system (which features in poetry) are examined in this chapter. Generally, poetic drama is a form of the play genre, whereas a dramatic structure in poetry is a type of poetry consisting of some characteristics that are borrowed from the theatre and novel genres and are incorporated into the structure of poetry. Despite this, a subtle lyrical style remains present in this new form of poetry, allowing a mixture of poetic and prosaic qualities to emerge in the poetry that now has a dramatic structure.

1.6 A Brief Biography of Darwish’s Life and Work

In March 1941, the Palestinian poet, Mahmoud Darwish,2 was born in a village called Al-

Birweh, which is close to Acre. His early years were spent in Palestine and until 1971 he had endured unfair treatment at the hands of the Israelis. Most of Darwish’s life was spent in various conditions of displacement, moving from city to city, and not experiencing permanent settlement. He and his family had been expelled from their home after the 1948 Nakba, and fled to South Lebanon where they stayed in refugee camps. He later illegally returned to

Palestine, only to find that his home in Al-Birweh had been demolished, leading to him relocate yet again.

Darwish’s legal travels outside of Palestine – leaving behind the harassment of the Israeli government3 – began in 1970 when he travelled to study in Moscow for a year on a scholarship. He then relocated to Cairo, and then Beirut as he joined the Palestinian

Liberation Organisation (PLO) as an executive committee member. However, he was forced

2 P. Williams, ‘Mahmoud Darwish (1941-2008)’, The Literary Encyclopaedia, 24 April 2012, http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=12674, (accessed 14 May 2017). And see: Mahmoud Darwish Foundation, [website], http://www.darwishfoundation.org/etemplate.php?id=23, (accessed 14 May 2017). 3 Mahmoud Darwish Foundation, [website]. And see: K. Mattawa, ‘When the Poet is Stranger: Poetry and Agency in Tagore, Walcott and Darwish’, PhD thesis, Duke University, 2009, pp. 216-217.

21 to leave Beirut during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982. After that, Darwish lived in

Tunis and then in Paris.

He eventually returned to Palestine, settling in Ramallah, but he never adapted well to the city as he was dividing his time between Ramallah and Amman.4 Moscow, as the first site of his international travels, played an important role and made a clear impression on him, resulting in him joining the Israeli Communist Party.5 However, Darwish’s time in the communist country was an epizhanous one in which he became disillusioned with certain communist practises, especially related to poverty, fear, and the deprivation that was rife amongst the people of Moscow.6

At the early age of 18, the poet began his creative journey by writing poetry; his first poem denounced the Israeli government that occupied his home in 1948. Though Darwish became well known as the ‘poet of the Palestinian resistance’7, he never desired this epithet. His poetry is distinguished by the theme of national identification and resistance in general that runs through it. Despite his attempt to leave these political ideas to focus on poetic development in his later work, political undertones remain apparent in his writings.

Darwish devoted his work to discussing the story of his people at both a societal and an individual level – all those who faced the various drastic experiences of displacement, a diasporic existence, and opposition, especially in refugee camps. These situations urged him to narrate his texts with the goal of representing the human perspective of the self and the society that had long been neglected.8

4 Williams, The Literary Encyclopaedia. 5 Ibid. 6 Mahmoud Darwish Foundation. 7 Williams, The Literary Encyclopaedia. 8 Ibid.

In his later life, Darwish suffered from serious heart problems. Following complications from heart surgery, he passed away in August 2008 in Houston, United States, at the age of 67.9

1.7 Historical Context

1.7.1 An Overview of Palestine in History

Mahmoud Darwish’s poetry characteristically developed in distinct stages; we can understand them by considering the changes in his work within its historical context, paying particular attention to the developments made after the 1967 War. A number of historical events contributed to Darwish’s new themes and styles. These events played a part in one of the most important aspects of Darwish’s work; the bond between him and his nation which led him to pay tribute to ‘the voices of defeat’ when he called himself a ‘Trojan poet’. This appellation was appropriate given the rebuilding of Palestine and its continual struggle against oppression.10 Thus, Palestine’s history certainly contributed to, and was reflected in,

Darwish’s career after 1967.

Over time, many tragic events occurred in Palestine, with the common theme among them being the struggle of the Palestinian people. Throughout the latter decades of Darwish’s life the growing conflict between Israel and Palestine had taken various forms, with multifaceted political, religious, and national aspects. The holiness of the city of Jerusalem for followers of the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic faiths, and later, the establishment of the state of Israel, has been thought to be central to much of the turmoil. Furthermore, Palestine was also greatly affected by the East-West political conflict.

9 Mahmoud Darwish Foundation. 10 S. Antoon, ‘Every Beautiful Poem is an act of Resistance- Mahmoud Darwish: 1941-2008’, Solidarity Organisation, 2008, http://www.solidarity-us.org/node/1896, (accessed 18 December 2016).

The support the European countries have given the Israeli state following its occupation of

Palestinian land is of great significance. Palestinian American literary and cultural critic,

Edward Said affirms that the occupation of Palestine and the triggering and encouragement of

Zionism in terms of ‘bringing Jews to Palestine’ – who occupied Palestinian land after the

1948 War – was engineered by European powers who wanted to create a land for the landless

Jews. These new settlers, who immigrated from elsewhere, went on to build the Jewish

(Israeli) state and repopulate the land (Palestine).11

Historically, the land (which called now Palestine) has been regarded as the birthplace of several of the world’s major religions. From 1000 to 586 BCE parts of Palestine were under

Jewish control. Muslims controlled the country for a much longer period, from 636 to 1917

CE, a total of more than 1200 years. This long period of Islamic rule in Palestine was interrupted only by the Christian Crusaders’ control of Jerusalem – the ‘Holy Land’ – for around 90 years (1099-1187). 12

Palestine was first an Arab and Islamic nation, which included Christians and Jews. It was founded at the end of the 7th century CE and was called Filasṭīn in Arabic. Literature from the

10th century indicates that this was the original name of Palestine and it affirms its location.13

The primary feature of Muslim Palestine was the desire to keep the land holy and pure.

Palestine is an extremely important and valuable site in Islam upon which the Al-Aqsa

Mosque is located. It is the third most important mosque in Islam after the Kaaba mosque in

Mecca and the Prophet’s Mosque in Medina. Furthermore, Palestine is the location of another valuable site in Islam, because it is the city where the Prophet Mohammed physically and

11 E. Said, The Question of Palestine, London: Vintage, 1992, p. xxxxi. 12 M. M. Sālih, Al- ḥaqāiq al-arba‛ūn fī al-qaḍiyya al-filasṭīniya, Beirut: Al-zaytūna, 2003,p. 4. It is important to note that after being liberated, Jerusalem was re-seized by Crusaders during the period of 1229 -1244. 13 Said quotes the message which states the original Arabic name of Palestine (Filaṭīn) and its location on an Arab map. Said, The Question of Palestine, p. 11.

24 spiritually experienced the Isrā’ and Mi‘rāj (Prophet Muhammad’s night journey through the heavens).14

The people of Palestine lived together in harmony despite adhering to different faiths. Even when discussing the Ottoman Empire during the early 16th to 19th century, Said asserts that the government was not in conflict with the locals, and nor were there significant differences between the various religions and races. Most Palestinians were Sunni Muslims, although a small number were Christians, Druzes, Jews, and Shiite Muslims.15 Later, however, owing to the Balfour Declaration of 1917 and fuelled by the establishment of the Israeli state in 1948, a deep emerging racism arose amongst the non-Arabs.16

With this in mind, and in order to gain an understanding of those transformations that followed the war of 1967 from a regional ‘group’ dilemma (Arab-Israeli conflict) to an

‘independent’ struggle (Palestinian-Israeli conflict), it is essential to review the different historical events that led to the defeat of 1967.

The first influential and essential event or focal point of modern Palestinian history was the

1948 War between the Arabs and the Israelis in Palestine, known as the Nakba (meaning catastrophe or disaster), and its aftermath. This was a crucial moment in Palestinian history which gave rise to the subsequent denial of the existence of Palestinians and their nation.

According to Sa’di and Abu-Lughod, the Nakba ‘led to the creation of the State of Israel’ in

Palestinians’ territories and led to ‘the devastation of Palestinian society’.17 New demographic trends following the 1948 war changed the area of Palestine. Nearly 80%

14 Sālih, p. 4. 15 Said, The Question of Palestine, p. 11. 16 L. Abu-Lughod and E. Said, History of Palestinians: A Land without a People part: 1, [online video], 2012, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxLegJBE_XI, (accessed 18 December 2016). 17 A. H. Sa’di and L. Abu-Lughod, Nakba Palestine, 1948, and the Claims of Memory, New York: Columbia University Press, 2007, p. 2.

(approximately 600,000 out of 780,000)18 of the Palestinian refugees lived in the newly

Israeli-occupied territories in the West Bank cities. Only a small number of Palestinian people, who have Israeli citizenship, have stayed in the territories controlled by the new

Israeli government. What is more, the Palestinian refugees were dispersed from their original neighbourhoods after the Nakba to other areas, such as the West Bank and Gaza Strip. A new geopolitical map redistributed the Palestinian regions to fall under the jurisdiction of the Arab state, while Jordan controlled the West Bank and its refugees. Egypt took control of another region, the Gaza Strip, and its refugees. After the 1967 War, these areas were occupied by the

Israeli military.19

In the post-Nakba period, the displacement of thousands of Palestinians was gradually planned by both Zionist and British colonialists, who had been working since the First World

War to act against ‘the natives of Palestine’ (Arab Palestine).20 Since 1948, the number of

Jews in the area increased significantly, especially in the two decades following the Nakba, to reach over 600,000. They formed one third of the total population of 1,192,122. The main reason for this was the depopulation of Palestinian land.21 Said affirms that the transformation of Palestine’s population greatly affected the Arab Palestinian nation, prompting it to become

‘non-existent’ and populated by Jewish people.22 This led to a deep struggle between Zionists and the Palestinians, whose situations were dissimilar: the Palestinians were denied their existence despite having already inhabited the territory (Palestine), whilst after 1948; the

Israelis had been given the right to settle under the Balfour juridical decision.23 In short, the

Balfour Declaration, which pledges to reconstitute Palestine as a home for Jews, was beneficial for the settling of Zionists, but disastrous for the Palestinian nation.

18 Said, The Question of Palestine, p. 11. And see: Ibid., p. 3. 19 Sa’di and L. Abu-Lughod, Nakba Palestine, p. 3. 20 Said, The Question of Palestine, p. 11. 21 Ibid., pp. 11-14. 22 Ibid., p. 15. 23 Ibid., p. 18.

The Nakba had another effect on Palestinian culture relating to Palestinian resistance. As

Ghassan Kanafani notes, due to the lack of teaching Arabic and Arab culture in schools located in occupied-territories and overseen by the Israeli government, the education system prevented allegiances between Palestinian Arabs and other people from the Arab world from being realised, pushing Palestinians to become influenced by Jewish culture instead.

Simultaneously, various forms of cultural repression and persecution were pervading their society.24 Said and Kanafani highlight that even poor conditions and strict enforcement around Palestinians could not withstand the entrenchment of Arab culture and prevent the formation of connections between Palestinians and the Arab world. A great number of

Palestinians rose to the challenge and struggled to enhance their Arab-consciousness while fighting for their rights to their land as vivid by the group known as Usrat Al-Arḍ (Family of the Land), whose mission focused on the desire to treat Palestinians and Jews as equals.25

The catastrophic events of the 1948 Nakba had serious psychological effects on the

Palestinian people who lost their land and the right to return to it. Calling upon collective memory, which preserves historical ties to the Palestinian homeland for a long time, helps the

Palestinian people to identify with their nation. However, as Sa’di and Abu-Lughod have argued, the work of memory became broken, both individually and collectively. Several generations, from those who recall the 1948 War to the present, have aspired to keep the memory of the Nakba present in people’s minds and to make it public. Thus, collective memory of the Nakba appears in Palestinian identity and asserts Palestinian political and moral claims to ‘justice, redress and the right to return’.26

24 Gh. Kanafani, Al-adab al-filasṭīnī al-muqāwim taḥta al-arḍ al-muḥtalla 1948-1968, Beirut: Muʼassasat al- dirāsāt al-filaṭīnīya, 1968, pp. 18-19. 25 Ibid., pp. 32-33. And see: Said, The Question of Palestine, pp. 129-130. Said states that this claim was eventually impossible, 26 Sa’di and L. Abu-Lughod, Nakba Palestine, 1948, and the Claims of Memory, pp. 2-3.

This is possible primarily because the memory had been made collective through the process of ‘canonisation’, as well as through a deep commitment on the part of Arab writers when recalling the memory. This, as Hammer argues, conveys ‘the perspective of group’ rather than the individual memory.27 After the Nakba, and in light of making symbols and narrating their catastrophic and painful experiences, links to nationalist concerns of Palestinian identity emerged in Mahmoud Darwish’s poetry and the works of other Palestinian writers. The use of symbolism of homeland’s elements (fruits and vegetables) allowed these writers to share their experiences with other members of their society. 28

Darwish draws on the tragic experience of exile and how difficult the loss of homeland is for

Palestinians to bear. This is mentioned metaphorically when he asks in his poem: ‘Where should we go after the last border? Where should the birds fly after the last sky?’29 Due to the authority of the Israeli state, the Palestinians were moved from one place to another inside its frontiers; these areas fell under much stricter rule after 1967.30

Another crucial aspect of Palestinian and Arab affairs is the aspiration to build the Arab unity. This idea was cultivated by Gamal Abd Al-Nasser, the leader of Egypt (1954-1970), and it played a significant role in the Arab-Israeli wars. Nasser and his allies from the Arab world had hoped that Arab unification would be achieved by combining two large Arab countries through foreign policy proclamations, as Egypt and Syria had done in 1958 with

‘The United Arab Republic’. This agreement was principally aimed to promote Arab unity

27 J. Hammer, ‘Homeland Palestine, Lost in the Catastrophic of 1948 and Recreated in Memories and Art’, in Crisis and Memory in Islamic Societies, Beirut: Orient-Institute der DMG, 2001, pp. 473-474. Available from: Martin-Luther University Hall-Wittenberg. (accessed 8 December 2016). 28 Sa’di and L. Abu-Lughod, Nakba Palestine, 1948, and the Claims of Memory, pp. 7, 11. And see: Hammer, Crisis and Memory in Islamic Societies, pp. 473-475. Hammer also indicates that the importance of the Nakba was in light of reproducing and shaping Palestinian nationalism and moved from overlap identities. 29 M. Darwish, Unfortunately, It was Paradise, trans. M. Akash and C. Forche with S and A. El-Zein, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003, p. 9. 30 Sa’di and L. Abu-Lughod, Nakba Palestine, 1948, and the Claims of Memory, p. 16.

28 against external forces and has lasted for three years, until 1961, when separation occurred as the result of a break down in political and military relations between Egypt and Syria.

Throughout the Movement of Arab Nationalism (MAN), great importance was placed on the years prior to the 1967 war by Palestinian resistance groups such as the PLO. This organisation promoted the ideology of the MAN in Palestine, but it also highlighted the powerlessness of the movement amongst Syrians due to unsuccessful Arab nationalism and the subsequent failure to rebuild unity in 1963.31 It has been argued that the rift between those nations (Egypt and Syria) caused the 1967 defeat.32 Its negative effects are unquestionable; it divided armed forces and lowered the chance of victory.

There is a clear link between the pan-Arab movement and Mahmoud Darwish’s early poetry, which, prior to the 1967 War, contained political ideas focused on the theme of resistance against Israeli occupation. As Barahmeh points out, once Nasserism arose in the 1960s,

Darwish’s poems became a part of the ‘resistance poetry’ movement, which was akin to

Nasserist political ideology. The ideology sought armed resistance to liberate Palestine and return the land to the Palestinian people as a means of resolving the ‘Palestinian issue’.33

Indeed, political affiliation played a significant role in shaping the work of Mahmoud

Darwish and the poetry of the Palestinian resistance.34 Darwish was also a member of the

Israeli Communist Party (known as Rakah and then Maki), something reflected in his voicing the echoes of resistance and presenting the theme of an Arab identity struggling against

Israeli occupation of the land.35

31 R. Khalidi, ‘The War and the Demise of Arab Nationalism: Chronicle of Death Foretold, in W.R. Louis and A, Shlaim (ed), The 1967 Arab-Israeli war Origins and Consequences, in W.R. Louis and A, Shlaim (ed), New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012, pp. 265-269. 32 C. D. Smith, Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict: A history with documents. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2013, p. 261. 33 Y. Barahmeh, The Poetry of Mahmoud Darwish: A study of the Three Developmental Phases of his Poetic Career, London: Lambert, 2012, p. 6-9. 34 Ibid., p. 9. 35 Ibid., p. 14.

1.7.2 The Impact of the 1967 Defeat on Arab Political Ideology and the Palestinian Case

One of the most catastrophic events of 1967 was the Arab–Israeli war, known as the Naksa, or ‘Setback’. This six-day-long war took place between 5 and 10 June. By the war’s end,

Israel had seized great swathes of Arab lands, including East Jerusalem, the West Bank, the

Gaza Strip, Golan Heights, and the Sinai Peninsula. Meanwhile, more than 100,000

Palestinian refugees were deported from Palestine and their homes were demolished or occupied by Israeli settlers, rendering impossible any chance of return.36 That upheaval, together with many other post-conflict changes, had an enormous effect on the Arab world, and particularly on the Palestinian people. This crushing defeat was a watershed, affecting the psychological, political, and ideological structure of the entire Arab region.

It is important to address the causes of the Naksa before examining its consequences as there are certain historical events which led to the 1967 Naksa. It is generally agreed that the Naksa was the result of the 1948 War and the creation of the State of Israel, which led to conflict between the Arabs and the Israelis along with Western countries.37 However, Smith argues that the reason for the Arab defeat in 1967 was the breakdown of the Egyptian and Syrian unity in 1961.38 In fact, this is one of the main reasons for the Arab defeat in the Six Day

War. The War of 1967 and the subsequent influence of Nasser’s resignation, stemming from the defeat, made the desired unity impossible.39

After the 1967 defeat, many Arab authors and intellectuals examined the causes of the defeat and its influence on the social and cultural aspects of the region. A significant study of the cultural impact of the June 1967 defeat in the Arab world is given by Elizabeth Kassab, who examines many texts by Arab authors and thinkers on this defeat, in her chapter ‘Critique

36 Smith, Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, p. 288. 37 This is indicated in the Nasser’s speech to members of the Egyptian National Assembly on 29 May 1967. Full text translated into English by C. D. Smith, Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, p. 297. 38 Smith, Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, p. 261. 39 Although Nasser announced his resignation after the 1967 War, he retracted it on account of public demand to remain in office, where he served until his death in 1970.

After the 1967 Defeat’. In the field of literature, Saʻdallah Wannous, a well-known Syrian playwright, depicts the aftermath of the 1967 defeat in his play ḥaflat samar min ajl khamseh

ḥuzayrān (‘An Entertainment Evening for 5th June’). Wannous illustrates these difficult moments of defeat, showing the devastation of many Arab people as feeling humiliated, frustrated, angered, and frightened.40 He also explores a key perspective of the 1967 Naksa – that the military defeat was followed by political repression with lack of freedom of expression for intellectuals and writers; and he reflected on a completely powerless cultural aspect of the population.41

Dalia Said Mostafa analysed the impact of the 1967 war in the Arab region, particularly as shown in the works of Saʻdallah Wannous and Ghassan Kanafani (a Palestinian author and novelist), in her chapter on the impact of the 1967 June defeat on culture. She points out that:

Many [Arab] writers, Academics and artists agreed at the time that the 1967 naksa was a result of multi-faceted ills which unfolded in the post-colonial era in the hands of military/patriarchal regimes which obstructed democracy and free speech in Arab societies.42

This defeat dramatically influenced Arab authors and their views, for instance, Wannous’ work is distinguished by politicising theatre, using autonomous dialogue in the play in which

Wannous criticises the authoritarian regimes in Arab countries.43 Kanafani talks about the

Naksa and its influence on social and cultural views. In his lecture in 1968, he denounces the reality of Arab thought when he refers to the political dialogue of al-lugha al-ʻāmyā’

(blind language), due to the fact that the rulers and leaders in the Arab world before 1967 deceived their populations by using vague and abstract expressions (blind language) in their speeches which did not tell the truth. Eventually, Kanafani suggested re-evaluating the use of

40 E. S. Kassab, Contemporary Arab Thought in Comparative Perspective, New York: Columbia University Press, 2010, pp. 63-64. 41 Ibid., p. 53. 42 D. S. Mostafa, The Egyptian Military in Popular Culture: Context and Critique, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017, pp. 56-59. 43 Ibid., p. 57.

31 classical language in political discussions and discourse in order to reach the masses and arrive at a clear vision articulated in a clear language.44

The 1967 Naksa had a large influence on Arab cinema too. In 1972, Egyptian filmmaker

Youssef Chahine, wrote and directed al-ʽaṣfūr (The Sparrow), which reflects on the causes of the 1967 War and how the media at the time played a key role in promising the victory of the

Arab forces. The film depicts the shocking moment when Arab forces declared their defeat.

Despite the failure of the war, the voices of the people called for steadfastness and resistance.

According to Ruqayya Zaydan, a paradox emerged wherein vivid pictures were drawn by the media predicting the Arab victory, something which contrasted greatly with the sad and dark reality of the defeat.45

The Naksa changed the bond between the Arab states and the Palestinian national movement led by the PLO,46 and it led to the establishment of the Popular Front for the Liberation of

Palestine (PFLP) in 1967, which had a political ideology in complete opposition to that of the

PLO.47 According to Pearlman, the chief aftereffect of the June war was that Fatah asserted the notion that the Palestinians should rely on the PLO instead of depending on the Arab nations. Therefore, in no way had the wissaya (guardianship) of Arabs in relation to the post-

Naksa Palestine failed.48 This was primarily because, following the 1967 defeat, the Arab countries had significantly changed their positions and appeared to be powerless and less confident than before, 49 despite the fact that the Palestinians had been formidably supported and mobilised by Arab leaders prior to the Naksa. The next President of Egypt, Anwar Sadat,

44 Ibid., p. 59. 45 R. Zaydan, Athar al-fikr al-yasārī fī al shi‛r al-filasṭīnī: shi‛r Maḥmūd Darwīsh- Samīḥ Al-Qasim- Tawfīq Ziād, Kufr Qar: Dar Al-Huda, 2009, p. 105. Available from: Mahmoud Foundation, (accessed 29 December 2016). 46 It is important to note that Mahmoud Darwish was a member of executive committee of (PFLP). 47 Smith, Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, p. 308. Smith notes that the (PDFLP) aimed to change the Arab world political ideology to be more radicalised to liberate Palestine. 48 Mattawa, ‘When the Poet is Stranger: Poetry and Agency in Tagore, Walcott and Darwish’, p. 254. 49 W. Pearlman. ‘The Palestinian National Movement, in W.R. Louis and A, Shlaim (ed), The 1967 Arab-Israeli war Origins and Consequences, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012, p. 138.

32 adopted a completely opposite position to his predecessor in 1978 when he made a peace settlement with Israel in the Camp David Accords (the treaty was signed in 1979).50

There were, however, stronger relationships between the PLO and Arab countries, made evident by some nations, such as Iraq, Syria, Algeria and Lebanon, providing continued support to the Palestinian resistance movement after the 1967 June War. These governments aimed to counterbalance and minimise the risk posed by the Fedayeen who lived in their countries; this was part of an effort to protect the political systems of these countries from the activities of these military groups.51

Fedayeen activities seemingly posed a significant threat in these countries since the PLO increased its strength after the 1967 Naksa.52 In Jordan, the bond between the PLO and the

Jordanian government became strained following the 1967 June War, a time in which a number of attacks were carried out by both the PLO and the Israeli forces in the West Bank.53

Fuad Jabber argues that the Fedayeen posed a threat to the Jordanian government which resulted in antagonism, opposition, and struggle in order to limit Fedayeen activities, leading to many Palestinian people fleeing to neighbouring countries.54 These circumstances gave rise to continuous skirmishes between the Jordanian forces and Palestinian militant groups.

Notably, one conflict that took place on 16-27 September 1970 between the Jordanian armed forces and the PLO – an episode known as Black September – which led to the death of over

3000 Palestinians and 11,000 were injured; most of the victims were ordinary civilians.55

The 1967 War had more than just a political influence on the Palestinians and the Arabs in general. It called into question the ideological stance and credibility of Arab nationalism.

50 Khalidi, The 1967 Arab-Israeli war Origins and Consequences, p. 267. 51 F. Jabber, ‘The Arab Regimes and The Palestinian Revolution, 1967-71, Journal of Palestine Studies, vol. 2, no. 2, 1973, pp. 79-80. Available from: JSTOR Arts and Sciences II, (accessed 2 November 2016). 52 Ibid., p. 84. 53 Smith, Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, p. 314. 54 Jabber, Journal of Palestine Studies, p. 86. 55 Smith, Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, p. 315.

Critically, Khalidi attributed the 1967 defeat to the weakness of Nasser’s leadership and the ideas of pan-Arabism, particularly the concept of Arab unity.56 Had the Arabs won, he claimed, nationalism would have been a dominant feature in all Arab countries. Furthermore, denouncements were made by hundreds of Egyptian students and intellectuals who demonstrated their disapproval of the courts’ leniency towards the military officers accused of negligence during the war.57

The Naksa has had both positive and negative effects. It led to an escalation of the

Palestinian–Israeli conflict, which had previously been more of an Arab-Israeli conflict. This change, as Said noted, presented the notion of an independent Palestinian power in the Arab region. In contrast, feelings of disappointment arose amongst the Palestinian people due to the defeat.58 The growth of religious political Islam has occurred since the Naksa across many Arab countries that have embraced ‘politicised religion’.59 On a superficial level, fundamentalist groups merged with Arab and Palestinian political ideology, and some fostered ideas of Jihadism in the fight against the state of Israel.60 However, this ideology is uncommon in the Arab world, including Palestine, due to the common views of coexistence and tolerance held by the Arab people and because political Islam was severely crushed under

Nasser.

Hudson argues that the positive impact of the defeat gave rise to a new generation of

Palestinian leaders, who have realised the risk of partisan politics. These leaders learned

Hebrew and explored many Israeli military techniques, thus evaluating the ways of their

56 Khalidi, The 1967 Arab-Israeli war Origins and Consequences, pp. 264-265. 57 R. Jacquemond, Conscience of the Nation: Writers, state and Society in Modern Egypt, trans, D. Tresiian, Cairo, The American University in Cairo Press, 2008, p. 21. 58 E. Said, After the Last Sky: Palestinian Lives (Photographs by Jean Mohr). New York: Columbia University Press, 1999, p. 19. 59 F. A. Gerges, ‘The Transformation of Arab Politics: Disentangling Myth from Reality’, in W.R. Louis and A, Shlaim (ed), The 1967 Arab-Israeli war Origins and Consequences, p. 290. 60 Ibid., p. 18.

34 powerful adversary,61 and their direct impact on the Palestinian people. What is more, a sense of consciousness and self-determination has begun to spread amongst the Palestinian people as they seek to gain ‘equal rights’.62 For exiled Palestinians scattered throughout Arab countries, their experiences of new places have also given rise to a sense of alienation

(Ightirāb) in the host Arab nations. Indeed, many work in advanced fields and with high- statuses in their host countries, but they feel subordinated, nonetheless, due to the consideration of Palestinian people as being refugees in these host countries.63

1.8 Palestinian Literature

In order to address the transformations of Arabic literature in general and Palestinian literature in particular, with a focus on Darwish’s poetry after the 1967 War through to the

1987 Intifada, it is essential to review the impact of the 1948 Nakba on both Arabic and

Palestinian literary works.

Prior to the 1948 War, Arabic and Palestinian literature were similar, as they had included a number of common themes and styles, consisting of ‘love poetry, historical and religious essays’.64 Ghassan Kanafani has observed that:

Palestinian literature, up to this tragic fall [Nakba] had been part of the mainstream of the Arab literary movement which flourished during the first half of the century. It has got its sources from and had been influenced by Egyptian, Syrian and Lebanese writers who led the literary movement then.65

61 M. Hudson, ‘The Palestinian Arab Resistance Movement: Its Significance in the Middle East Crisis’, Middle East Journal, vol. 23, no. 3, 1969, p. 297. Available from: JSTOR Arts and Sciences II, (accessed 3 November 2016). 62 As Said states the claim of Palestinians to be independence was initially by the vote at United Nations in 1969. See: E. Said, The Question of Palestine, p. 6. 63 Ibid., pp. 130-131. 64 S. Mir, ‘Palestinian Literature Occupation and Exile’, Arab Studies Quarterly, vol. 35, no. 2, 2013, p. 111. Available from: Pluto Journals, (accessed 31 December 2016). 65 Ghassan. Kanafani, Poetry of Resistance in Occupied Palestine, trans. S. Hijjawi, Baghdad: Ministry of culture, 1968; 2009, p. 3. Available online at: http://www.24grammata.com/wp- content/uploads/2014/07/PoetryOfResistance_Sulafa_Hijjaw-24grammata.comi_.pdf, (accessed 31 December 2016).

Naser al-Assad argues that Palestinian literature during the early decades of the 20th century and before the 1948 Nakba initially arose from classical and romantic types of literature.66

These traditional forms of literature were prevalent among Palestinian writers between the

1930s and 1940s since they were considered essential for Palestinian writers in their struggle against colonialism.67 This commitment to politics and society was also extended to

Palestinian literature over the period between 1948 and 1968, when ‘resistance literature’ was conveyed amongst Palestinian authors in Israel.

These abysmal conditions of cultural and political siege led to Palestinian resistance literature not experimenting with free verse poetry, but, instead, paying much more attention to

Palestinian issues. The focus was shifted away from the development of the poetic experience. This new form of poetry had spread across the Arab world, and Palestinian resistance writers were in favour of protecting Arab cultural identity from the danger of disappearing rather than experimenting with the free verse. Palestinian poets, therefore, embraced the traditional and popular forms of poetry – what Kanafani refers to as being

‘popular poetry’ – that emerged amongst Palestinian writers who were distinguished by their commitment to political and social topics and their emphasising Arab identity.68 Bahir Abu-

Manneh analyses Kanafani’s view that the reason Palestinian poets retained the old poetic structures after the 1948 Nakba was to maintain a collective cultural identity in order to culturally and politically confront Israeli imperialism and oppression.69

In contrast, between the 1948 Nakba and the 1967 Naksa, Arab poets, known as the

‘generation of the pioneers’ or the ‘generation of the catastrophe’, had broken from the old

66 Mir, p. 111. 67 B. Abu-Manneh, The Palestinian Novel from 1948 to Present, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016, p. 76. 68 Ibid., p. 76. 69 Ibid.

36 poetic rules and traditional concepts.70 Poets such as Yusuf al-Khal, Khalil Hawi, Jabra

Ibrahim Jabra, Adunis71 (Ali Ahmed Said), and Salah Abd al-Sabur experimented with free verse and contributed to the development of modern Arabic literature in their endeavour to change Arab politics and encourage society to adopt revolutionary positions after the 1948

War. Furthermore, the creation of the Israeli state in Palestine contributed to the emergence of the free verse movement (ḥarakat al-shiʻr al-ḥurr). This followed in the steps of major influential figures such as Nazik al-Malaika and Badr Shakir al-Sayyab who had established the free verse movement in contemporary Arabic poetry and played a key role in spreading this new style across all Arab countries.72

This literature, written in Israel by Palestinian authors (also called ‘minor literature’) shows the political commitment towards the Palestinian issue and the collective voice through which

Palestinian resistance literature is primarily expressed following the Nakba.73 Deleuze and

Guattari have chosen the term ‘minor literature’ to define these political writers from a marginalised community. Despite being revolutionary, they always speak for the collective cause.74 Deleuze and Guattari also explain that the commitment to literary work75 is the basic element stipulated in minor literature.76According to Honaida Ghanim, Palestinian poets post-

Nakba articulated in their poems the spirit of nationalism in a number of ‘national songs’.

70 S. Kh. Jayyusi, ‘Modernist Poetry in Arabic’, in M. M. Badawi (ed), Modern Arabic Literature, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992, p. 146. 71 These poets, Yusuf al-Khal, Khalil Hawi, Jabra Ibrahim Jabra, Adunis and Badr Shakir al-Sayyab led the development of modern Arab poetry known as ‘Tammuz poets’ with regard to the use of Tammuz myth in their poems that notably appears in Sayyab’s collection Unshūdat al-matar published in 1960. For further information see: P. Starkey, Modern Arabic Literature, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2006, p83. 72 Starkey, Modern Arabic Literature, pp. 79-83. 73 Mattawa, ‘When the Poet is Stranger, p. 221. 74 G. Deleuze and F. Guattari, Kafka: Towards a Minor Literature (1975:1986), tans. D. Polan, Minneapolis, London: University of Minnesota Press, 1986, p. 17. 75 This function of literature known in Arabic literature as (‘Adab al-iltizām’), was affected by social realism, and emerging from Sartre’s work, also has roots in Arabic committed writers such as Salama Moussa, Raif al- Khouri and Marun Abboud. 76 Ibid.

However, they mention that the poets felt incapable of changing their community, something that led to the theme of ‘collective shame’ after the defeat.77

Ghanim also refers to the Nakba ‘as a time of falling into the abyss’, and adds that post 1948

Palestinian literature includes poets reciting the tragedy of a people who lost their land, just as Darwish’s work does.78 For example, the Palestinian land is often poetically linked with symbols, such as a beloved, a mother, or a fiancée; in this poetic language they are the personified homeland and are sexualised, representing the loss of honour, known as ightisāb

(rape), something which brought ‘ār (collective shame) to the whole Arab nation.79

In Said’s important essay, ‘Arabic Prose and Prose Fiction After 1948’,80 he points out the influence of the Nakba, and later the Naksa, on Arabic and Palestinian writers, as both historical events made the cultural and national struggle prominent, and sought to restore the historical issues by making a collective case and solidifying the identity of the Palestinian nation. Furthermore, the manner in which these wars changed the themes and styles of Arab authors began to highlight the influence of historical moments and political states caused by the conflict between Western countries and the Arab world. These events have a deep impact on fictional work and led Arab intellectuals and writers to commit their works to asserting a collective identity and to confront external powers.81

Moreover, the process of creating literary works could, in fact, function as the homeland for writers;82 as Theodor Adorno mentions, if a person does not have a home, writing can

77 H. Ghanim, ‘Poetic of Disaster: Nationalism, Gender, and social change Among Palestinian Poets in Israel after Nakba’, International Journal of Politics, Culture, and society, vol. 22, no. 1, 2009, p. 23. Available from: Springer Standard Collection, (accessed 5 January 2017). 78 Ibid., p. 31. 79 Ibid., pp. 33-34. 80 E. Said, ‘Arabic Prose and Prose Fiction after 1948’, in Reflections on Exile and Other Literary and Cultural Essays, London: Granta Books, 2001. 81 Ibid., 2001, pp. 44-45. 82 N. Kricorian, That Country Beyond Our Reach: Palestinian Fiction Since 1967, Wasafiri, vol. 29, no. 4, 2014, p. 8. Available from: Taylor & Francis Journals, (accessed 19 January 2017).

38 become ‘a place to live’.83 In reference to Palestine, ‘land values’ have been expressed, reflecting Palestine’s agricultural background. Various types of produce grow there, such as fruits, vegetables, and olives. Palestinian poets have demonstrated their strong ties to their nation, characterising it as a source of food and an essential source of ‘symbolic imagination and cultural creation’.84 For example, in his poem, biṭāqat hawiyya,85 Darwish writes:

My roots

Sink deep before the birth of time

And before the beginning of the ages Before the time of Cypress [pines] And the olives Before the beginning of grass.86

In this context, Darwish asserts that the Palestinian people have lived in their land for a long time, even before the existence of time, and before trees grew. The connection is made not only between the inhabitants of the land, but also between the ancestors and their descendants, who inherited the land, ‘My father belonged to the family of the plough, was not grand stock. My grand-father was a farmer, without a pedigree’.87 This text also contains agricultural words such as ‘olives, cypress and grass’ which are linked to Palestinian land, fields and soil and symbolise peasant identity.

Moreover, it is significant that in this poem, the Palestinian identity is referred to as being an

Arab one.

Write down

83 T. Andoro, Minima Moralia: Reflections from Damaged Life, trans. E. F. N. Jephcott, London: Verso, 1978, p. 87. 84 Ghanim, International Journal of Politics, Culture, and society, p. 35. 85 This poem was translated into English by Sulafa Hijjawi as “Identity Card”. See: M. Darwish, Biṭāqat hawiyya trans. S. Hijjawi, Poetry of Resistance in Occupied Palestine, pp. 22-23. 86 Ibid., p. 22. 87 Ibid.

I am an Arab I am a name without an associated title I am patient in a land where all people live in an anger spree.88

This text describes something which is a daily occurrence in the life of Palestinian commuters

- an Israeli checkpoint officer asking a Palestinian commuter about his ID card - but in this case, the articulation of the Palestinian’s response illustrates the reclamation of Arab national identity; ‘Write down, I am an Arab’. In this part of the poem, he emphasises, as Barahmeh argues, ‘the political affiliation to Arab nationalist ideology’, which is in contrast to

Darwish’s poetry, in the time before the Naksa, which articulated of Arab ideology in order to confront Israeli occupation.

After the 1948 War, a dramatic trend arose in which a technique belonging to the genre of play was applied to fiction and theatre. It included a number of scenes caused by the Nakba which, as Said affirms, was fully emphasised by Arabic novelists and dramatists.89 In his novel, Rijāl fil Shams, (Men in the Sun), Palestinian author and novelist, Ghassan Kanafani, describes the impact of the Nakba on Palestinians by using the scene technique. He uses a number of dramatic scenes of the aftermath of the 1948 events and articulates the story of the

Palestinian refugees.

Said describes this novel as being ‘one of the most powerful modern novellas’, using the scene of the 1948 defeat in contemporary literature to reflect on this catastrophic event. He deemed it ‘problematic of contemporaneity’. This concept links to the multiplicity and intensification of scenes after the 1948 Nakba in Arab prose. Scenes of the defeat proliferated

88 Ibid., p. 21. 89 For an example of dramatism, see Naguib Mahfouz’s 1959 novel, Awlād ḥāritna (literally: Children of our Alley) translated into English by Philip Stewart as (Children of Gebelawi) in 1981 and Yousef Idriss’s play Al- farāfīr’. For more information see: E. Said, Reflections on Exile and Other Literary and Cultural Essays, pp, 51- 54.

40 significantly and resulted in conflicting images between the nostalgia to the past and the desperate truth of present life.90 For example, Said analyses Kanafani’s novel, Men in the

Sun, which describes the journey of three male characters who left Palestine and fled to

Kuwait, smuggled inside a locked tank. The characters eventually die tragically when the truck was hailed at a checkpoint in the desert according to Said, the scene led to

‘psychological, political and aesthetic results of the disaster’.91

1.9 The Transformations of Arabic and Palestinian Literature between 1967 and 1986

1.9.1 Resurgence of Steadfastness and Insistency

The events of 1967 were the game changer that influenced the views of many Arab authors, something that is reflected in their literary works known as Adab Al-Naksa (i.e. ‘the literature of defeat’). This is particularly true regarding their attitudes towards the regime of Gamal

Abd Al-Nasser, the leader of Arab nationalism and the Arab defeat in the June War.

Naguib Mahfouz, a pioneering writer of Arabic novels and winner of the Nobel Prize in literature in 1988, felt fearful and anxious due to these traumatic events.92 He, along with other authors of the same period, were deeply shocked as they believed that they had misjudged the strength of the Arab world rather, the strength of pan-Arabism and Arab armies.93

Ironically, however, this debacle had actually given them strength, as they had gained the freedom to share their opinions and rethink social and historical events. The 1967 events may

90 Edward Said also had referred this problem to Nasik Al-Malaika and explains the modernity of literature as a ‘life’s service’. Ibid., pp. 49-51. 91 Said, Reflections on Exile, pp. 53-55. 92 R. El-Naqqash, Nagīb Mahfūẓ safaḥat min mudhakkirātih wa ’aḍwa’ jadīda ala adabihi wa ḥayātihi, Cairo, Al-Ahrām markaz lil- tarjama wa al-nashr, 1998, pp. 271-272. Available from: NARJES-Library, (accessed 8 November 2016). 93 Gerges, The 1967 Arab-Israeli war Origins and Consequences, p. 291.

41 have been the causative agent leading to the literary form known as the ‘literature of prophecy’,94 which is generally defined as a form of literature that consists of socio-political criticism linking the views of the 1960s’ Arab authors. These authors attempted to explore the socio-historical realities following the downfall of Arab nationalism and ‘Nasserism’, which was, for a long period, considered an optimistic proposition for the Arab world, but has been associated with corruption and propaganda.95

Writers such as Naguib Mahfouz, Sonallah Ibrahim, and Alfred Farage have articulated the crisis of contemporary Arab thought ahead of the 1967 defeat,96 and were therefore called the ‘prophets of the defeat’.97 This literary mission encouraged the discussion of socio- political issues and became the writers’ commitment to their society after the 1948 Nakba.

On the other hand, Jabra Ibrahim Jabra, a well-known Palestinian poet, novelist, and critic, played a key role in the effort to renew Arab culture. Jabra distinguishes himself as a realist author who promotes the notion of ‘self-sacrifice’. Many Arab authors draw upon Jabra’s epithets from his poem ‘myth of redemption’, which centres on the social concerns of his people.98 Regarding the Nakba generation, Jabra believes:

They [the poets] started with Tammuz and Ishtar and went on to Christ the Crucified. They have seen themselves in the image of one or the other, confident that through their blood there shall be redemption and resurrection.99

The enormous impact of the 1967 Naksa is expressed in the literary experiences of many

Arab writers. In his 1974 book, ʽAwdat alwaʽy (The Return of Consciousness), the renowned

94 Jacquemond, Conscience of the Nation: Writers, pp. 91-92. 95 Ibid. 96 These literary works include Naguib Mahfouz’s novels Adrift on the Nile (1966) and Miramar (1967), Sonallah Ibrahim’s collection of short stories Tilka al-raʼiḥa (1966) and Alfred Farage in his play Ḥallaq Baghdad (1964). 97 Jacquemond, Conscience of the Nation: Writers, p. 92. 98 Abu-Manneh, The Palestinian Novel from 1948 to Present, pp. 33-35. 99 J. I. Jabra, ‘The Rebels and the Committed’, in A Celebration of Life: Essays in Literature and Art Baghdad : Dar al-Ma’mun , 1988, p. 66, cited in B. Abu-Manneh, The Palestinian Novel from 1948 to Present, p. 35.

42 dramatist and writer of contemporary Arabic literature, Tawfiq al-Hakim, uses different epithets to refer to the 1967 war, as ‘a third war and a third defeat’, ‘an indication of the mockery’, ‘an unreasonable defeat’, and ‘the amazing truth’. The effect of the 1967 war on the Arab audiences is reflected upon by al-Hakim as he describes living through those moments:

My mind worked in that way because it was impossible, intellectually or logically, to easily believe that our armies could be routed in a few days.100

In this narrative, al-Hakim shows that not all Arabs were able to accept the implausible event and its aftermath. The Egyptian community found the defeat inexplicable; as al-Hakim claimed: ‘Of course the Egyptian people were not in a natural situation of consciousness like other people in similar circumstances’.101 Another section from the same work states that:

‘after the defeat of 1967, and when a kind of semi-consciousness began due to the necessity of a reckoning...’. One could say, therefore, that the June 1967 war facilitated the return to a conscious structure amongst those authors, even though the psychological phenomena of paralysis, melancholia, and nostalgia were also present in writers and the literati.102

According to Elizabeth Suzanne Kassab, the dramatic events of 1967 led to ‘humiliation, disappointment, anger, and fear’ among Arab people, and were reflected in the theatre experience, which witnessed the creation of a number of dramatic scenes in plays influenced by the 1948 Nakba and the 1967 Naksa. For example, Saʻdallah Wannous depicts the socio- historical conditions of the Arab world after the Six-Day-War in his play An Entertainment

Evening for June 5.103 Wannous believes that the key role of the theatre is as an effective critic of culture and politics through politicised theatre that increases the awareness of

100 T. Al-Hakim, The Return of Consciousness, trans, B. Winder, Hampshire, Macmillan, 1985, pp. 40, 41. 101 Ibid., p. 42. 102 T. El-Ariss, ‘Fictional of Scandal’, Journal of Arabic literature, no. 43, 2012, p.523. Available from: Brill Online Journals, (accessed 15 November 2016). 103 Kassab, Contemporary Arab Thought in Comparative Perspective, pp. 48-53.

43 society.104 An important principle employed by Wannous in this play was to not convey Arab heritage, but instead to provide a theatrical experience similar to that found in Greek and

Western theatres, in which there is greater interaction with the characters and audience. This meant that the actors and spectators were highly active together in the theatre as they spontaneously engage in dialogue during the performance, providing a unique experience in

Arab theatre and contributing to its development. Thus, a participation aspect, similar to real- life interactions, is brought to the theatre stage.105

In Out of Place: A Memoir, Edward Said describes with dread his situation, reminiscing whilst positing a hard question to Charles Malik that drew an unusual and inconceivable answer regarding the Six-Day defeat:

[When Said asked] Charles to come out, so to speak, and help guide the Arabs out of their incredible defeat. A stupid idea perhaps, but at the time it seemed plausibly worth pursuing. What I was not prepared for was his uncharacteristically passive answer: that this was not his time.106

Despite the fact that Said must have been disillusioned by the 1967 defeat and would have hoped for the assistance of Charles, who had a political strategy to prevent the collapse, he

‘learned the attractions of dogma, of the search for unquestioning truth’107 from Malik before the battle. Thus, under the new circumstances, Said had undergone a metamorphosis of ideological structure and began departing from the common voice of ‘Arab identity’ which had been associated with political commitment. Emphasising the individual voice and moving away from the collective identity led to improvements in the levels of self- consciousness, but raised doubts regarding some ‘truths’.

104 Ibid., p. 53. 105 Ibid., pp. 55-56. 106 E. W. Said, Out of Place: A Memoir, London, Granta, 2000, p. 268. 107 Ibid., p. 265.

The 1948 War impacted the Arab novella and led to the creation of new themes and styles.

According to Said, there are several prominent themes in the majority of Egyptian novels including the themes of history, tragedy, resistance and the dramatic style, which caused by the 1948 Nakba. Egyptian critic, Ghali Shukri, has examined the near-tragic conflict between a protagonist and outside forces, emphasising the bond between literature and reality and reflecting the role of the author in society.108 Shukri also notes that this genre has contributed to the struggle as ‘an act of resistance’, which began after the 1948 Nakba and was further developed after the Six-Day-War.109 In short, Said observes that recalling history through narratives has become more popular following the 1967 War due to the impact of the catastrophic event of the 1948 Nakba, which took its toll amongst Arab novelists.110

Palestinian novels and short stories emphasise the act of resistance. Aesthetic styles have also been developed, for example, a well-known novelist, Emile Habiby, in Al-waqāʼiʽ al- gharībah fī ikhtifā’ Said abī al-naḥs al-mutashā’il (The Secret Life of Saeed, the IƖƖ Fated

Pessoptimist), combines realism, fantasy, tragedy, and comedy’ in his ‘Palestinian national epic’.111 Nancy Coffin explains that the successes of this well-received novel are due to it exceeding expectations in terms of its political and literary effects and being distinguished by relaying multiple-perspectives of political ideologies.112 The Pessoptimist novel also paid attention to the Palestinians’ experience in exile and their resistance in an occupied land.113

Thus, in the post-Naksa era, there were new trends of non–realistic literature.114 Richard

Jacquemond has affirmed that a number of non-realist forms of literature have spread

108 Said, Reflections on Exile and Other Literary and Cultural Essays, pp. 48-49. 109 Ibid., p. 48. 110 Ibid., p. 56. 111 Mir, p. 114. 112 W. Ouyang, Poetics of Love in the Arabic Novel: Nation-State, Modernity and Tradition, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2012, p. 98. Available from: JSTOR, (accessed 31 July 2017). 113 Ibid., p. 98. 114 It is also called ‘modernist realism’, ‘avant-garde’ and the sort that is not reflected and stimulated the reality but instead be self-reflective and relies on aesthetic nature. See: Jacquemond, Conscience of the Nation, p. 93.

45 amongst Arab authors and that the literature is largely in the form of short stories in modern

Arabic and is caused by political corruption that had damaged the realist form.115 The aim of this genre was to seek an autonomous literary model instead of works committed to a political or social message. A typical example of this new form is a collection of short stories called Taḥt al-miẓallah (Under the Umbrella), which was written in 1969 by Naguib

Mahfouz. The stories in the collection talk about the impact of the 1967 defeat.116 Said highlights that in spite of the fact that modern post-Naksa Arabic literature emphasises a continuation of collective Arab identifications, we can see the national ‘local experiences’ of countries such as Egypt, Syria, and Palestine differ from those from the rest of the Arab world’s ‘collective experience’. This ‘collective experience’ has appeared more frequently in the works of Palestinian authors in various forms and appears in Egyptian literary works like

Mahfouz’s Taḥt al-miẓallah, which articulates the case of Egypt. However, despite these diversities, Arab writers unanimously felt deep disappointment and disillusionment following the 1967 defeat.117

Recent investigations by Richard Jacquemond, Tarek El-Ariss and Elizabeth M. Holt have indicated that there might be a relationship between the strict political system and the production of literature in the 1960s, which could have led to the rereading and interpreting of the ‘Arab introspection’ after the Naksa.118 Indeed, both Arabic culture and literature were affected by the June collapse, which prompted historical and socio-political changes. The circumstances presented huge barriers to the development of Arab modernism and autonomy, but they also had the positive effect of stimulating new literary discourse amongst authors who demonstrated their awareness through their contributions.

115 Ibid. 116 Though, there was a root of those non- realist works which were found in the theatre when Saʿd Ardash, who was a director, came back to Egypt in 1962. Jacquemond, Conscience of the Nation, pp. 92-93. 117 Said, Reflections on Exile and Other Literary and Cultural Essays, pp. 57-59. 118 For further information see: Jacquemond, Conscience of the Nation, p. 91. T. El-Ariss, Fictional of Scandal, p. 523. And see: E. M. Holt, ‘Bread of Freedom The Congress for Cultural Freedom, the CIA, and the Arabic Literary Hiwār (1962-67)’, Journal of Arabic Literature, no. 44, 2013, p. 100.

There was an immediate response to the June defeat in the genre of poetry, which came from

Nizar Qabbani in his poem titled hawāmish ʽalā daftar al-naksa.119 The poem paints images of nihilism and defeatism in the wake of the 1967 War. However, Qabbani had been known as a romantic poet until the Naksa, after which he shifted to new themes:

The old world is dead. The old books are dead. Our speech with holes like worn-out shoes is dead. Dead is the mind that led to death.

In the third section of this poem, he states the change:

My grieved country, In a flash You changed me from a poet who wrote love poems To a poet who writes with a knife.120

In this poem, Qabbani expresses the loss of the Arab community and culture resulting in the defeat and abandonment of old thoughts and principles that cannot express this new complex situation. He states ‘but our souls live in the Stone Age [‘aṣr jāhilī]’. It is also noteworthy that

Qabbani in this text is concerned more about social and cultural issues than the waves of his sentimental expressions, which usually prevail in his poems. In this poem, the amount of emotion that ordinarily features in Qabbani’s work is absent.

119 “Footnotes in Setback’s Notebook”. 120 There are some selections of this poem translated into English by Fawaz. A. Gerges in, The 1967 Arab- Israeli war Origins and Consequences, pp. 293-295, cited in N. Qabbani, Al-a‛mal al-siyyasiyya al-kāmila, Beirut, 1993, pp. 71-73.

1.9.2 New Poetic and Dramatic Structures

For Darwish, the Naksa was a watershed. Its massive influence on his writing style was evident. It helped develop new structures and styles, which were apt for allowing the poet to express his viewpoints and struggles. For example, in Darwish’s poetry, a new phase emerged wherein he began to use a mournful voice to express the loss of the Palestinian homeland and evoke the stories of the Palestinian resistance and heroism, as he attempts to achieve global resonance through powerful imagery and language speaking of the nation’s rights and voices. Barahmeh addresses this change, which resurrects past tragic events and brings them to the present, placing them in metaphorical contexts, and highlighting the unattainable return in reality to Palestinian territory,121 Palestinian national identity and history are fundamental throughout Darwish’s life in exile and he maintains these through his poetic language and discourse.

Despite a continued commitment to the Palestinian issues which emphasise the socio-political resistance, many Palestinian writers along with Darwish began to develop their cultural ideologies and self-consciences in their post-Naksa poetic experiences, as they expressed steadfastness in literary contexts. Hence, the structures and styles of poems changed to develop into a new phase; there is evidence in Darwish’s work that he moved to a new stage of poetry. According to Sulaiman Jubran, since Darwish left Egypt in 1971, the new stage of his work had merged with the end of his socio-political roles as a poet of resistance who needed to concentrate on developing artistic and cultural ideas.122

The use of this dramatic system in the work of Darwish post-Naksa began when he moved between Moscow, Cairo, and then to Beirut where he experienced a new struggle of internal

121 Barahmeh, The Poetry of Mahmoud Darwish, p. 18. 122 S. Jubran, ‘The Image of the Father in the Poetry of Mahmoud Darwish’, in H. K. Nassar and N. Rahman (ed.), Mahmoud Darwish Exile Poet: Critical Essays, Massachusetts: Olive Branch Press, 2008, p. 80.

48 conflict.123 Barahmeh argues that the experience of losing his homeland coincided with the feeling of nostalgia that first appeared in the Beirut period, as his Beirut-based poems composed from 1971 to 1982 confirmed his Palestinian national identity, of which he was deeply certain.

It is noteworthy that Darwish’s earlier poetic works had used a dramatic system that can be seen in his earlier four collections, the 1966 ‛āshiq min filastīn,124 the 1967 ākhir al-layl,125 the 1970 Ḥabībatī tanhaḍ min nawmihā,126 and the 1970 Al‛asāfīr tamūt fī al-jalīl (1970).127

Darwish began to combine narrative and lyrical elements in many poems; however the sense of an oratorical style still appears in these collections.128 Bennani argues that after the 1967 war, Darwish more readily used myths and symbols in his poetry and that there is a preference for ‘suggestion over direct address, narration over discourse, and persona over personal I’.129 In his poem al-Ward wa al-qāmūs,130 Darwish comments on his new poetry:

Be that as it may, But I must… The poet must have new inspirations And new songs.

Then he runs to draw the new form of poetry.

Be that as it may, But I must reject death, Though by my legends will die,

123 N. Ali. Bunyat al-qaṣīda fī shi‛r Maḥmūd Darwīsh, Amman: wazāra al-thqāfa, 2001, p. 47. 124 (A Lover from Palestine). 125 (At the End of Night). 126 (My Beloved Rises from her Sleep). 127 (Doves Die in Galilee). 128 Ali. Bunyat al-qaṣīda fi shi‛r Maḥmūd Darwīsh, pp. 29-45. 129 B. Bennani, ‘The Poetry of Mahmoud Darwish: A Critical Translation’, PhD Thesis, State University of New York at Binghamton, 1979, p. 26. 130 This poem is translated into English as “Roses and Dictionaries” from (At the End of Night) collection. It was translated into English by Ben. Bennani.

Among the ruins I search for light and new poetry.131

In this piece, Darwish calls for the new form of poetry, which is considered to be essential after the 1967 Naksa in order to represent Palestinian cases and the development of his artistic and cultural awareness. This is because Darwish is seemingly unable to discuss the dramatic circumstances which were caused by the defeat and its impact using the old language. The defeat urged him to be stronger and more resistant, and despite this traumatic event and consequent dark times, he expresses steadfastness and optimism by creating his own myths and symbols.132 In short, Darwish sought to renew his poetic writing by including the use of dramatic language in order to understand the unpleasant reality.

The artistic development of Darwish’s poetry changed since he departed from Beirut in 1982.

This is partly due to the invasion of Beirut and the Sabra and Shatila Massacre in the same year, as Nasser Ali and Yousef Barahmeh have identified an epical structure ‘in narrative style’ that continues until the Oslo Accords in 1993.133 In short, this experience allowed him to shift from a personal dimension to a more universally human and international dimension.

Jayyusi argues that Darwish and other Palestinian poets, such as Khayri Mansur, Ahmad

Dahbur, and Murid Barghuthi, experienced exile which led them to combine together and concentrate on two voices in their poetry. One voice focussing on the nation and social commitment, and the other a ‘private [individual] voice’.134

The transformations in the types of poetry used by Darwish furthered the development of his poetic artistic structure. He mentions that the departure from one poetic form to another does not cut the relationship between the present and the past, but rather it is the process of

131 Bennani, ‘The Poetry of Mahmoud Darwish’, pp. 98-99. 132 R. El-Naqqash, Maḥmūd Darwīsh, sha‛ir al-arḍ almuḥtalla, 2nd edn, Cairo: Dar al-hilal, 1971, pp. 91-92. 133 Ibid., p. 22. And see: Barahmeh, The Poetry of Mahmoud Darwish, pp. 20-26. 134 Jayyussi, Modern Arabic Literature, p. 178.

50 demolition and reconstruction that protects the basis of artistic identification; it is unable to have a final shape.135 Salah Fadl explains that the connection between various poetic stages in

Darwish’s work was essentially due to the poet’s views of commitment to capturing the

Palestinian question and Palestinian resistance. Darwish’s style moved from lyric poetry to the use of dramatic system in poetry, since its application in his 1970 collection, particularly in his poem titled kitāba ʽalā ḍaw’ bunduqiyya that exhibits writing that is not as lyrical as in traditional poetry.136

A considerable number of Arab critics have noted that new narrative and dramatic structures had transformed Darwish’s post-Naksa poetry from short lyrical poems to long non-lyrical poems consisting of objective elements. Namely, these poems consist of new multi-linguistic and grammatical structures that can be distinguished by their dialogue, polyphonic contexts, and vibrant expressions.137 Remarkably, the emergence of the dialogue style in the poetry of

Darwish made him a ‘poet and dramatist’ due to the sense of dramatic system that arose from his work. A good illustration of dialogue in Darwish’s poetry is found in ughniya sādhija ‘an al-ṣalīb al-aḥmar,138 a poem that contains dialogue divided into two voices. The poem begins with a young boy speaking to his father and depicting ironic images of his family and himself, but it includes themes of anger and misery,139 Darwish writes:

Do all people in the places Have arms that sprout bread and hope And a national anthem? Why then, Father, do we feed on the oak branch

135 S. Fadl, Asālīb al shi‛riyah almu‛āṣira, Beirut: Dar al-adāb, 1995, p. 150. 136 Ibid. I will examine kitāba ʽalā ḍaw’ bunduqiyya in the following chapter when I review Salah Fadl’s analysis of this text. 137 Ibid., pp. 150-153,161. 138 This poem translated into English as “A Native Song on the Red Cross” by Ben Bennani. 139 El-Naqqash, Maḥmūd Darwīsh, sha‛ir al-arḍ almuḥtalla, pp. 140-141.

And recite, secretly, melodious poems? Father, we are safe and well In the hands of the Red Cross.

The response comes from another voice – that may or may not be the father – later on in the same poem, and it portrays hope and an optimistic future:140

They took away your rocking horse And the shade of your star. It’s alright My son, you’re the rose of a volcano And the pulse of my arm And in your eyes I see the birth of tomorrow And a horse replete with my father’s flesh.141

Therefore, many Arab critics wrongly predicted that Darwish was going to write poetic drama, as he was clearly capable. Even though, as El-Naqqash notes, Darwish was capable of writing poetic drama, as there is evidence of artistic dramatic features in his poetry, Darwish announced that ‘I would so much like to try my hard at writing a verse play [poetic drama]’.142 This means that, although a sense of drama emerged from his poetry, it was not in the literary form of a play.

The influence of the Tel Zaatar Massacre in 1976, the invasion of Beirut, and the Sabra and

Shatila Massacres are seen in his 1982 collection, Dhākirat lil-nisyān.143 Nasser Ali states that the new writing was equal to and as powerful as guns.144 Darwish took on a new form of writing, developing the themes, styles, and structures of his poetry to capture the complex

140 Ibid. 141 Bennani, The Poetry of Maḥmoud Darwish, pp. 109-111. 142 S. Fadl, Asālīb al shi’riyah almu’āṣira, Beirut: Dar al-adāb, p. 161. And see: El-Naqqash, Maḥmūd Darwīsh, sha‛ir al-arḍ almuḥtalla, p. 140. 143 It was translated by Ibrahim. Muhawi as (Memory for forgetfulness). 144 Ali. Bunyat al-qaṣīda fī shi‛r Maḥmūd Darwīsh, p. 48.

52 circumstances that surrounded him that led to his use of dramatic structure.145 This also confirms that the true descriptions of reality triggered the use of new language as the new language led to an increased understanding and awareness of reality, whilst the traditional poetry could only be descriptive and incite revenge through fighting.146

1.10 Definitions of Poetic Drama and Dramatic Structure in Poetry

There are three terms related to the dramatic system that should be defined clearly: drama, poetic drama, and the dramatic structure in poetry.

The term 'drama', an etymologically Greek word, originally meant, as Ashley Bukes put it, the ‘action and the vision of man in movement [that] has animated all dramatic compositions from the earliest times’. This definition has been extended by Dukes to include the writer’s

‘creative contribution to dramatic art’.147 Ismail has added that it is whatever conflict is introduced to the play.148 This means, therefore, that the definition of drama includes action, movement, the participation of the playwright in creating the play, and conflict between two or more contrasting situations.

In spite of the fact that poetic drama and dramatic poetry are quite similar, given that dramatic poetry shares many of the artistic characteristics of drama, Keir Elam highlights some significant differences between reading dramatic literature and watching drama, which result in opposite reactions to them.149 Izz Al-Din Ismail explains that the new approach of

145 M. Darwish, Memory for Forgetfulness, trans. I. Muhawi, London: the University of California Press, 1995, p. 64. 146 Ali. Bunyat al-qaṣīda fī shi‛r Maḥmūd Darwīsh, p. 48. 147 A. Dukes, Drama, London: Thornton Butterworth Ltd, 1936, p. 1. 148 Izz. A. Ismail, Al shi‛r al-‛rabī al-ḥadīth: qaḍayah wa ẓwahiruh al-faniyya wa al-ma‛nwiyya, Beirut: Dar Al- Awda, 1972, p. 279. 149 K. Elam, The Semiotics of Theatre and Drama, 2ed edn, London: Routlege,Taylor & Francis Group, 1987, p. 101.

53 drama in poetry is not written poetic drama, such as seen in the works of Ahmad Shawqi,150

ʽzīz Abāẓa, and Salah Abd Al-Sabur, but it is the transformation from pure lyrical poetry to, as he calls it, Al-ghinā’iyya Al-fikriyya (lyrical thought), which is expressed in dramatic poetry.151 The conflicts in the Arab world and Palestine led Darwish to use a dramatic style in his poetry.

The term ‘dramatic’ is defined by Dawson as an expression used to refer to the characteristics of play which appear in theatre and other forms of literature, especially in modern critical literature, and can refer to the dramatic language used in stories, novels, and poems.152 In addition, Dawson adds that the term ‘dramatic’ as a word which links to other words, such as situation, response, tension, concern, and presentment.153 Aziz al-Akkashi defines the term

‘dramatic structure’, when used regarding poetry, as a type of complex system which integrates the poet’s ego and other collective struggles in light of expressing multiple-voices

(I and other) to present an objective vision. This results in the use of different techniques in other forms of art, such as in theatre, fiction, myth, and cinema, and it has been a means through which the author expresses not only his own view, but the views of many others by using multiple voices.154 In fact, a dramatic poem can be distinguished by its dramatic characteristics, such as dialogues, monologues, stories, scenes or a conflict between characters, despite maintaining the same lyrical structure that appears in various other forms of poetry.

150 An Egyptian critic Taher at- Tanahi observes that the influence of Shakespeare on Ahmad Shawqi that the use of rhythmed verse in drama and led to Shawqi introduced the poetic drama form to Arabic literature. For further information: M. Ahmed, Elements of Comedy in the Verse Dramas of Ahmad Shawqi: A Study with special Reverence to Al-Sitt Huda and Al Bakhila, PhD Thesis, Assam University, 2014, p. 4. Available from: Sodhganga, (accessed 23 March 2017). 151 Ismail, Al shi‛r al-‛rabī al-ḥadīth, p. 282. 152 S. W. Dawson, Drama & the Dramatic, Norfolk: Methuen & C Ltd, 1970, pp. ix-x. 153 Ibid., p. x. 154 Al-Aakkashi, Mustawayāt al-ada᾽ al-drāmī ῾ind ruwwād al-taf‛ῑla, Jorden: Ālam al-kitāb, 2010, pp. 8-11.

Although there are certain differences between poetic dramas and dramatic poetry, or ‘the dramatic structure of poetry’, some critics believe these terms are overlap. However, Ibrahim

Hamada distinguishes the differences between poetic drama and dramatic poetry. He points out that poetic drama is generally understood to mean the theatrical text that is written in verse for performing on stage in front of an audience. He asserts that dramatic or theatrical poetry has come to be used to refer to versed literature that is more suitable for reading than a work that is theatrically directed and watched.155

Thus, it is important to explore the reasons for converting from traditional poetry (even with free rhythm) into dramatic poetry. One of the main reasons is that, for a long time, Arabic poetry was distinguished by the subjective tendency of the poet to express only his own sentiments and emotions in the poem. Therefore, one way to change this sense of subjectivity in lyrical poems was to use a dramatic structure that triggered the poetry to become more objective when expressing literary contexts and this began to broaden the writer's perspectives of various issues.156 Another reason is that many modern Arab poets tend to break the barriers between poetry and prose forms and make them more similar by applying dramatic elements to poetry and using techniques from both theatre and novels.157

Furthermore, Arab poets dealt with many dramatic historical events that reflect their modernist experiences; some write from the perspective of exiles, being under siege and oppression, which leads them to create elements of dramatic structure. Dramatic structure is used alongside the use of a number of narratives in Arabic poetry in order to convey multiple points of view, introduce new forms, and communicate a sense of resistance.158

155 A. Al-Zubaidī, Dramiyyat al-naṣ al shi’rī al-ḥadīth dirasa fī shi‛r Ṣalāḥ Abd al-Ṣabūr wa Abdulazīz Al- Maqaleh, Damascus: Dār al-zamān, 2009, p. 20. 156 Ibid., p. 15. 157 Ibid., pp. 15-16. 158 A. Al-Aakkashi, Mustawayāt al-ada᾽ al-drāmī, p. 7.

It is important to note that although dramatic poems borrow some features from narratives and theatrical genres, the sentimental and lyrical sense remains apparent. The poetic experiences in the dramatic style harmonize poetry and drama.159

There is evidence that T.S. Eliot, a British and American poet, dramatist, and critic, has influenced Arabic literature and inspired Darwish to employ dramatic structure in Arabic poetry. Jabra Ibrahim Jabra, in his article ‘Modern Arabic Literature and the West’, discusses

T.S. Eliot's influence on Arab poets, particularly through his poem ‘The Wasteland’ — also known as al-arḍ al-yabāb — which uses ancient myths. Jabra also highlights the reason for the sentimental response to this poem; he says:

Because they [the Arab poets] too, went through an experience of universal tragedy, not only in World War II, but also, and more essentially in the Palestine debacle [The 1948 Nakba], and its aftermath. In this later, “The Wasteland” and its implications seemed strongly to fit. 160

Mohammed Shaheen examines Eliot’s influence on Darwish’s work and the similarities between the poetry of both of these writers. Shaheen analyses Eliot’s poem ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’ and Darwish’s poem ‘Mural’ in a comparative study; he concludes that the experience of reading Darwish’s work is similar to that of reading Eliot’s work and both poets echo each other, but they are not completely the same.161 This highlights the evolution of Darwish’s work in terms of its linguistic and cultural components and his links to Western literature.

Eliot’s theory of drama emphasised the impact of dramatic language on the communication

‘between play and audience’ and on aesthetical value, since the language of drama in poetry

159 Ibid., p. 21. 160 Ibid., p. 83. 161 M. Shaheen, T. S. Eliot wa atharihi fī al-shi‛r al-‘arabī al-ḥadīth: al-Sayyab, Ṣalāḥ Abd al-Ṣabūr, Maḥmūd Dawīsh, Cairo: Āfāq, 2007, p. 22.

56 is considered to convey the ‘greatest intensity’.162 For example, in Eliot’s poetry there are a number of ‘dramatic qualities’ which express impersonal experiences.163 According to Denis

Donoghue, Eliot’s important essay, ‘The Voices of Poetry’, classified various voices of poetry into three parts. Firstly, ‘the voice of poetry talking to himself’, known as ‘non- dramatic verse’. Secondly, there is a quasi-dramatic element in which the poet addresses the audience and a dramatic monologue is used by the author. Finally, there is the voice of poetic drama or dramatic verse that can be used in verse drama with a wide range of characteristics in the play.164 In fact, this classification shows the transformation from lyrical to dramatic literature and the differences in diction, syntax, and versification levels of poetic drama.165

Another of Eliot’s significant essays, ‘Poetry and Drama’, also affirms the bond between these two genres. The essay focusses on the development of poetic and theatrical structures concerning the various lengths of verse (line) and the new language that is close to people’s lives; he confirms the importance of dramatic relevance to theatre.166 Matthiesson analyses

Eliot’s revisions to the dramatic method and theory throughout his works; one of the most interesting changes to poetry development occurred when Eliot primarily concentrated on dramatism, which led to multi-independent viewpoints as Eliot criticised ‘characters who were material, literal-minded, and visionless’.167

Throughout this thesis, the term dramatic structure or dramatic poetry is used to refer to the type of poetry in Darwish’s work that consists of some dramatic and narrative characteristics,

162 D. Donoghue, Third Voice: Modern British and American Drama, London: Princeton University Press, 1959, pp. 245-256. Available from: JSTOR. (accessed 7 February 2017). 163 S. W. Dawson, Drama & the Dramatic, p. 73. 164 Donoghue, Third Voice: Modern British and American Drama, p. 264. 165 Ibid., p. 265. 166 F. O. Matthiessen, The Achievement of T. S. Eliot: An essay on The Nature of Poetry, New York: Oxford University Press, 1958, p. 209. 167 Ibid., pp. 207-211. The view of independent voices of characters in verse play also concerns in the Eliot’s essay ‘The Three Voices of Poetry’ and he aimed to the impersonality of poetry.

57 such as myths, dialogues, scenes, narration and polyphony, to portray various views in an objective manner, whilst maintaining traces of sentimentality and lyrical features.

1.11 The Contribution of this Thesis

First and foremost, the purpose of this study is to focus on the dramatic structure which appears in the work of Mahmoud Darwish. The study aims to analyse Darwish’s dramatic and narrative techniques which he borrowed from prose genres, such as myths, symbols, dialogues, scenes, narration and polyphony, and to assess how this structure led to the transformation of his poetic structure. It is important to note that the historical and political events that took place from 1967 to 1987 influenced the lives of the Palestinian people and they are clearly reflected in Darwish’s poetic experiences as he began to use new themes, styles, structures and viewpoints. Therefore, this study addresses the relationship between these events and the themes and structures in the poetry of Darwish and explores the transformations of Palestinian cultural identity and the poet’s own identity.

Furthermore, this thesis will examine the notion of Darwish’s post-colonial discourse and literary experiences, including the transformations of his work and his cultural development.

It will analyse how his use of the dramatic system represents the Palestinian marginal voices as well as the voice of the poet in which his work tells stories about his people in terms of representing resistance and struggle against colonialism and how Darwish uses different strategies of resistance. This thesis will also address the way in which the new dramatic structure in poetry creates close relationships between the poetry genre and prose genres such as theatre and fiction. The result of this is a complete integration between poetry and drama into one poetic form. Therefore, the privilege of Darwish’s post-colonial discourse is in its articulation of various languages, genres and voices.

Although there are a number of critical studies analysing the work of Darwish, this thesis will adopt new approaches that may help to explore the dramatic system. This thesis builds on these studies, which are shown in Asālīb al-shi’riyah al-muʽāṣira168 written by Salah Fadl, and in Bunyat al-qasīda fī shi‘r Maḥmūd Darwīsh,169 by Nasser Ali, this thesis adopts new approaches that may help to explore the dramatic system.

While this thesis builds on these studies, it also investigates Darwish’s poems from new angles and approaches by using Bakhtin’s theory, postcolonial theories, and memory theories, which explore the work of the poet from different dimensions.

There will be a focus on the use of dialogism, heteroglossia and intertextuality in Bakhtin’s discussions and certain concepts of post-colonial theory that include displacement, exile, diaspora, cultural and national identity, hybridity and subaltern (marginal group voices against dominant group) when examining the development of the writer’s language and his use of the dramatic system in order to represent his anti-colonialist discourse.

Moreover, whilst some previous critical studies have examined Darwish’s work as part of larger-scaled studies, this study will focus solely on the work of the writer, particularly his use of the dramatic structure, and will examine new selections of poems which have not been studied hitherto.

It is important to note the importance of Alenzi’s thesis I am neither there, nor here: An

Analysis of Formulations of Post-Colonial Identity in the Work of Edward W. Said and

Mahmoud Darwish as it is a valuable resource for this study. However, this previous study relies on cultural and socio-political disciplines and delineates the changes in self-identity caused by the effects of the 1948 Nakba and the 1967 Naksa. Also, Alenzi’s study depends on interdisciplinary research, including sociology, politics, culture, and psychology to

168 Fadl, Asālīb al shi’riyah almu’āṣira, pp. 150-171. 169 Ali, Bunyat al-qaṣīda fī shi‛rMaḥmūd Darwīsh, pp. 22-92.

59 examine the notion of identity. This undervalues the field of literature and the critical studies of poetry when exploring the aesthetic characteristics of Darwish’s work with regard to metaphoric language and discursive developments. In short, Alenzi’s thesis represents the dominant cultural, social, and political perspectives rather than the literary and poetic views.

It is important, therefore, to centre this study’s analysis on literary criticism and post-colonial and cultural theories when studying the poetry of Darwish post-Naksa (from 1967 to 1987), and the representation of cultural identity, as well as to acknowledge the value of recognising traces of other relevant disciplines that may help to understand the writer’s work more fully.

1.12 Structure of this Thesis

The thesis comprises six chapters:

Chapter Two will provide a literature review which examines the influence of pre and post-

Naksa on Palestinian literature and Darwish’s work. There is evidence that the transformations found in his poetry can be categorised in different phases, especially between the years 1967 and 1987. This chapter will focus on a number of post-1967 historical events: the 1967 Naksa, the 1982 Siege of Beirut, the 1982 Sabra and Shatila Massacre, and the First

Intifada in 1987. These are the tragedies which led to the emergence of the dramatic structure in Darwish’s poetry, causing him to develop new themes, styles, structures, and views.

Furthermore, this chapter addresses the methodology of the study, and explains the theoretical framework for the examination of Darwish’s work. Finally, this chapter determines the process through which works by Darwish that contain dramatic and narrative language will be selected for analysis in the present study.

Chapter Three explores the work composed by Darwish from 1971 to 1993: a time when he lived outside Palestine, residing in several different countries. It highlights the impact of the

60 diasporic experience and its association with the dramatic structure in Darwish’s work. Post- colonial theory is used to examine how this experience resulted in the development of the writer's language and culture, and his use of the dramatic system. Revolutions and struggles are key themes of post-colonial Palestinian literature as it includes an important volume of anti-colonial discourse that targets both colonialism and imperialism.

Chapter Four analyses the transformation of both Darwish’s memory and of Palestinian national memories and identity throughout the post-Naksa period (1967 to 1987). This includes the conflict between the collective and individual memories presented in Darwish’s work which led to the use of the dramatic system in his poetry. This chapter also examines the concepts of traditional and new memories, and how the traditional (old) memory is reconstructed in the new memory in Darwish’s post-Naksa texts.

Chapter Five examines several narrative and dramatic characteristics of Darwish’s poems

(long prose poems), including the concepts of intertextuality, heteroglossia and dialogism.

Particular consideration is given to the poet’s introduction of dialogue and polyphony (social heteroglossia) into his work, representing his own voice, Palestinian national voices, and the struggle against Israeli occupation.

The conclusion (Chapter Six) summarises the main argument of this study, providing an overview of the research findings, the study’s limitations, and offering possible suggestions for future research into Darwish’s work.

1.13 Conclusion

To conclude, the introductory chapter has represented a biographical information about

Mahmoud Darwish’s life associated with the contextual background of Palestinians’ history,

61 political ideology, and literature in relation to the changes of Arab politics and literature which caused by the 1967 Naksa.

Given the nature of Darwish’s work, an overview of its historical context is an essential component of this study, especially the events which occurred from the 1948 Nakba through to the 1967 Naksa. This is because, Darwish’s work in its early phase related to Nasserism

(Arab collective unity) in terms of involving revolutionary and armed resistance against

Israeli occupation and colonialism. In contrast, Darwish’s post-Naksa work focused on cultural assimilation, the development of his literary discourse/language, and on co-existence with the Israelis. Darwish’s work after the Naksa is also distinguished by his use of new themes, structures, and views including the use of the dramatic structure.

The 1967 Naksa influenced Darwish to produce new themes, structures, and views using the dramatic structure. This form of poetry contains a number of narrative and dramatic elements

- including stories, myths, dialogues, scenes, and voices - to convey different socio- ideological views in an objective manner, whilst retaining some lyrical qualities. This form is fitting given Darwish’s desire to articulate the stories of Palestinian struggles and resistance and represent various voices of Palestinian (marginalised) group against Israeli colonialism.

Darwish’s poem kitāba ʽalā ḍaw’ bunduqiyya is an example of this. In his 1970 collection

Ḥabībatī tanhaḍ min nawmihā, Darwish began to use the dramatic structure, which typifies his work post-Naksa. It illustrates a new form of writing that was less lyrical than the traditional poetry of his earlier phases, instead using the dramatic system – which features objectivity, and the representation of different voices and ideologies - to reconstruct further artistic and cultural ideas. Therefore, this thesis will examine the dialogic languages and discourse present in Darwish’s work, encompassing the various voices, thoughts and speeches featured, including the voice of his people. The study will analyse how Darwish’s

62 discourse shaped (Palestinian) national and cultural identity, memory, and history, as well as his own identity - offering resistance against the discourse of colonialism.

Chapter Two: Literature Review

2.1. Introduction

This chapter will review a number of critical studies analysing Darwish’s work. His work is distinguished by its phases of evolution over time which highlight the historical events that occurred from 1967 through to 1987, including the Beirut period (1971-1982) of Darwish’s life. Various studies analyse this timeline of transformation and reflect on his work considering the new themes, styles, and structures. The chapter will begin by explaining the main features of the poet’s work with an overview of the Palestinian issues - identity, memory, displacement, exile, and the hope of return to the homeland - that recur throughout his work.

The chapter will go on to elucidate the close relationship between Darwish and his homeland and community; it will highlight the closeness of their views regarding the question of

Palestine. Additionally, the aesthetic qualities of Darwish’s work will be analysed. This will include an analysis of the transformation of his work to renew the poetic experience and cultural developments when he began to include myths, symbolism, and heritage characteristics. This section will also highlight the crucial studies that explore the emergence of the dramatic structure in Darwish’s work, identifying the period in which Darwish began to apply this new system to his work, analysing how he incorporated dialogue and polyphony to produce a new kind of poetry.

Furthermore, this chapter will explain the contribution of the current thesis to the elimination of knowledge gaps, attempting to address Darwish’s use of narrative and dramatic structures in his new approach to producing poetry. It will also address the process for the selection of

Darwish’s texts, which will be analysed throughout the thesis. The selected poems feature

64 several key elements of the dramatic structure, including dramatic and narrative discourses, and characteristics that are fused into one form. This chapter concludes by clarifying the thesis methodology in terms of integrating the theoretical framework in relation to Darwish’s work.

2.2 Critical Studies on Mahmoud Darwish

2.2.1 Renewal of the Poetic Experience: The theme of Exile and Identity in Darwish’s

Work

The most important critical studies on Mahmoud Darwish are found in Hala Khasim Nassar and Najat Rahman’s edited volume Mahmoud Darwish Exile’s Poet: Critical Essays.170 This work consists of twelve essays selected from two conferences of the Middle East Studies

Association. Each essay is written by a different scholar who focuses on the political, historical, or cultural aspects of Darwish’s poetic experience. Furthermore, this study also includes an interview with the poet conducted by Najat Rahman, which is useful in giving readers a clearer understanding of Darwish’s development of poetic experience to various phases and his points of view.

In the foreword of the edited volume, Salma Khadra Jayyusi discusses the various aspects of

Darwish’s work, including language, imagery, and form-development. She also discusses the uniqueness of Darwish’s talent; he is considered ‘a true modernist poet’ who influenced young poets in the Arab world.171 Jayyusi also highlights that the main feature of Darwish’s poetic experiences are the discussions surrounding the tragedy of Palestinians as individuals

170 H. K. Nassar and N. Rahman (ed.), Mahmoud Darwish Exile Poet: Critical Essays. Massachusetts: Olive Branch Press, 2008. 171 S. Kh. Jayyusi, ‘Mahmoud Darwish’s Mission and Place in Arab Literary History’, in H. K. Nassar and N. Rahman (ed.), Mahmoud Darwish Exile Poet, pp. vii-viii.

65 and their tragedy as a group in light of articulating of collective memory, allowing their struggles to be seen as being more human and universal than personal experiences.172

This volume considers different types of theoretical approaches in each chapter, but each and every one carefully explores the relationship between the idea of exile and the recollections of the homeland in Darwish’s later work. It is this relationship that caused the transformations in Darwish’s work from its earlier to its later stages. The changes could be said to be due to his views regarding identity and nation, as well as the language of his poetry. Nassar and Rahman have affirmed that there is evidence of new forms of poetry found in Darwish’s later work. These forms include: lyric, epic, long poem, prose poem, and other forms of poetry. They also explain the exile-experience component of Darwish’s work, which they refer to as ‘an alternative history’. This is a fragile element of Darwish’s poems and is regarded as an art form that articulates much about the Palestinian people, who were considered ‘historically silenced’.173

Najat Rahman’s chapter in this volume examines the impact of the siege of Beirut in 1982 on

Darwish’s work, which can be seen in the collection Ḥiṣār li-madā’iḥ al-baḥr174 and limādha tarakta al-ḥiṣān waḥῑdan?175 These works began a new phase in light of the concept of

‘home’. The poet’s preoccupation with his attachments to, and the meaning of, home resulted in him being considered a ‘nationalist poet’. This event (the siege of Beirut) led the poet to reinterpret the meaning of home from being a physical place in which people live, to a more metaphorical definition, through which poetry became his home following the events of

1982. Poetry became ‘a space of survival’ for Darwish who articulated the multiple voices of

172 Ibid., p. ix 173 H. K. Nassar and N. Rahman, Mahmoud Darwish Exile Poet, p. 3. 174 It was translated into English as (Siege for the Praises of the Sea). 175 This collection was translated as (Why You Leave the Horse Alone).

66 his people.176 Furthermore, Rahman also notes that after the siege of Beirut and due to its impact on Darwish’s work with regards to new themes, styles, and structures, Darwish also began to employ epic poems, myths, and themes of heritage in his works.177 These characteristics led to a new form of poetry called ‘lyrical epic’, allowing the poet to ‘speak about collective predicaments of struggle and loss’.178

Rahman has highlighted the period after 1982 in which Darwish recalls the ‘pre-Islamic and

Andalusian heritages’ in his poetry because it helps make clear connections between the past and the present.179 For example, in the poem Aqbiya, Andalusiyya, Ṣaḥrā’180 from the Ḥiṣar li-mada’iḥ al-baḥr collection, Rahman draws attention to the Darwishian poetic expressions after 1982 that have been identified as having a dialogical style with multiple voices, both individual and communal.181 This poem is also characterised by combining three forms of poetry that include nashīd (lyric), ughniya (song) and qaṣīda (the pre-Islamic ode/desert journey),182 as Darwish starts the poem with the lyric (collective song/voice), but it ends with song (individual voice). Darwish writes, ‘You continue your lyric [collective singing] in my name. Have I chosen your mother and your voice? Desert, Desert.’ Then he writes, ‘So you continue your lyric in my name and don’t cry, my friend, for a string lost in the crypts it’s a song. It’s a song!’183

In ‘The Image of the Father in the Poetry of Mahmoud Darwish’, Sulaiman Jubran examines

Darwish’s poetry throughout his life. He analyses the way in which the image of a father is

176 N. Rahman, Threatened Longing and Perpetual Search: The Writing of Home in the Poetry of Mahmoud Darwish, in H. K. Nassar and N. Rahman (ed.), Mahmoud Darwish Exile Poet, pp. 41-42. 177 Ibid., p. 42. 178 Ibid., p. 46. 179 Ibid., p. 42. 180 “Crypts, Andalusia, Desert”. 181 Ibid., p. 53. 182 Rahman, Mahmoud Darwish Exile Poet, pp. 51-54. 183 M. Darwish, “Aqbiya, Andalusiyya, Ṣahrā”, in Al-dīwān: al-aʽmāl al-kāmila 2, Beirut: Riyad Al-Rayys, 2005, pp. 403, 408. There are some selections of this poem translated into English by Najat Rahman, in Mahmoud Darwish Exile Poet, pp. 50, 52.

67 classified into three phases that correspond with the poet’s career.184 Faysal Darraj, however, in ‘Transfigurations in the Image of Palestine in the Poetry of Mahmoud Darwish’, explores the changes in the concept of Palestine in Darwish’s work from 1964 (Awrāq al-zaytūn) to

2005 (ka-zhr al-lāwz aw Ab’ad). This is, as Darraj points out, predominantly regarding a number of changes throughout the poet’s experiences in Palestine, exile, and poetry.185 In

Darraj’s examination, it is Darwish’s Palestinian identity that allows him, as a poet, to shift and liberate the concept of Palestine, allowing it to encompass the ‘human cosmos’ in his late poetry, and to seek peace, despite a number of sieges and dramatic events that befell him and the Palestinian people.186

Jubran explores the work of Darwish from 1971 to 1994, when the poet moved to Egypt and then went to live in other countries. This point in Darwish’s life was a turning point in his trajectory towards a new phase. He went on to pay much attention to ‘artistic development’.

Simultaneously, it was also a departure from political ideas; he was often referred to as a

‘poet of resistance’.187 Jubran adds that this new stage was when Darwish abandoned his

‘Marxist views’. In the first stage, the poet had called for his people ‘the collective voice’ to become more poetic by using symbols borrowed from Islamic and Christian traditions.

Resultantly, his contexts entailed various voices that compared the past and the present using intertextual figures.188

Mouhammed Fouad Al-Sultan’s study, which significantly analyses the use of symbols in the work of Darwish, is titled ‘al-rumūz al-tārikhiyyah wa al-dīniyyah wa al-usṭuriyya fī shiʽr

184 S. Jubran, The Image of the Father in the Poetry of Mahmoud Darwish, in in H. K. Nassar and N. Rahman (ed.), Mahmoud Darwish Exile Poet, pp. 79-80,93. Jubran explores the development of the image of father and the work of Darwish in three stages; while the image of Darwish’s mother is unchanging throughout his career. 185 F. Darraj, The transfigurations in the Image of Palestine in the Poetry of Mahmoud Darwish, trans. H. K. Nassar and A. A. Ibrahim, in H. K. Nassar and N. Rahman (ed.), Mahmoud Darwish Exile Poet, p. 57. 186 Ibid., p. 74. 187 Jubran, Mahmoud Darwish Exile Poet, p. 80. 188 Ibid., p. 81.

Maḥmūd Darwīsh’.189 Symbols in Darwish’s poetry are amongst its main aesthetic features.

The work consists of an introduction, two sections, and a conclusion. The first section aims to cover the invoking of historical and religious symbols and their use in Darwish’s work. The second section of the study examines Darwish’s use of mythological symbolism.

Mouhammed Al-Sultan states that the theoretical approach of his study is descriptive and analytical.

Al-Sultan’s study examines various historical and religious symbols that emerged after the poet left his homeland and began living in exile in 1970. These traditional symbols have

Arabic, Islamic, Christian, and Jewish characteristics. Darwish recalls these heritage symbols in his work to make clear reflections between the past and the present, expressing new meanings and suggestions that are relevant to Palestinian issues. These include the notions of dispossession, struggle, and resistance.190 In the poem titled riḥlat Al-Mutanabbi ilā Miṣr,191

Darwish recalls the symbol, ‘Al-Mutanabbi’.192 He writes:

للنﻴل عاﺩا ت The Nile has its habits ﻭإنﻲ ﺭاح ل And I am departing أمشﻲ سريعأً فﻲ بالﺩ تسرﻕ األسماء منﻲ Walking rapidly in lands which steal from me the names قد جئ ُﺖ من حلﺐ، ﻭإنﻲ ال أعﻮﺩ إلى العراﻕ I came from Aleppo, and I shall not return to Iraq سقط الشما ُﻝ فال أالقﻲ The North has fallen, so I do not see غﻴر هذا الدﺭب يسحبنﻲ إلى نفسﻲ ... ﻭمصر.But this path which draws me to 194 myself… and Egypt.193

189 M. F. Al-Sultan, ‘Al-rumūz al-tārikhiyyah wa al-dīniyyah wa al-usṭuriyya fī shiʽr Maḥmūd Darwīsh’, majallat jāmiʽat al-aqṣā (silsilat al-ʽulūm al-insāniya), vol. 14, no. 1, 2010. Available online from: https://www.alaqsa.edu.ps/site_resources/aqsa_magazine/files/331.pdf, (accessed 18 August 2017). 190 Al-Sultan, Al-rumūz al-tārikhiyah wa al-dīniyah wa al-usṭuriya fī shiʽr Maḥmūd Darwīsh, pp. 2-3. 191 “Al-Mutanabbi’s Journey to Egypt”. 192 A prominent poet and one of the greatest poets in Arab literature, Abu Al-Tayyib Ahmoud bin Al-Huseen Al-Mutanabbi. 193 It is my translation. (Unless otherwise translated of all translations from Arabic are mine). I also bring Arabic vision as the poem does not translate and I will do so through the thesis. 193 Fadl, Asālīb al shi’riyah al-muʽāṣira, pp. 162-163.

Darwish evokes Al-Mutanabbi in light of his journey to Egypt in 956, after leaving Aleppo.

Al-Sultan notes that in the text, Darwish embodies the character of Al-Mutanabbi and his individual crisis that links to his political aspiration to be nominated as ‘wālī’ but he did not become a leader despite his unique standout in poetry. For Darwish, ‘new Al-Mutanabbi’ refers to his extended crisis, and Al-Mutanabbi is used as a mask to include individual and collective dimensions surrounding the issues and struggles of Palestinian people.195 Al-Sultan also explains the similarity between Darwish and Al-Mutanabbi as their criticism of the despotic governments occurred within the same periods. However, Darwish’s text expresses two integrated voices (Darwish and Al-Mutanabbi) representing human revolutionaries fighting against poverty and humiliation. For both, Egypt is considered to be the hopeful place that can solve the Arab nations’ problems.196

In his article ‘Mahmoud Darwish and Al-Mutanabbi’,197 Adel Alasta argues that the significance of reading riḥlat Al-Mutanabbi ila Miṣr is due to it providing a good understanding of the socio-political conditions and the writer’s views. Darwish wrote this poem in 1980 when the Israel-Egypt treaty for peace took place, along with the disapproving response to the agreement in the Arab world and the resultant isolation and withdrawal of

Egypt from its leadership of the Arab region. The disagreements between Darwish and the

PLO, due to his disappointment with the organisation, also occurred during this time.198

Alasta adds that, just like Al-Mutanabbi, Darwish stayed in Egypt for a short period (1971-

1972) and only he had to leave when Egypt fell under the Sadat regime.199

194 M. Darwish, “Al-Mutanabbi’s Journey to Egypt”, in Al-dīwān: al-aʽmāl al-kāmila 2, Beirut: Riyad Al- Rayys, 2005, pp. 419-430. 195 Al-Sultan, Al-rumūz al-tārikhiyyah wa al-dīniyyah wa al- usṭuriyya, p. 6. 196 Ibid., p. 7. 197 A. Alasta, ‘Mahmoud Darwish and Al-Mutanabbi (1)’, Mu’ssasat Filastin li-thaqāfa, [website], 2009, http://www.thaqafa.org/site/pages/details.aspx?itemid=6070#.WZqokvn6Hlw, (accessed 21 August 2017). 198 Ibid. 199 Ibid.

Another important study of Darwish’s work is Zaytūnat al-manfā dirāsāt fī shiʽr Maḥmūd

Darwīsh.200 It consists of eight articles and addresses the features of Darwish’s work and the development of his poetic experience, which are investigated by a number of scholars and critics who attended a critical colloquy that took place in the 16th Jerash Festival for Culture and Arts in 1997. They specifically examined the poetic techniques, styles, and various artistic structures present in the work of Mahmoud Darwish through the analytical and thematic methods.

In the introduction of this book, Abdullah Ridhwan points out that the hallmark of Darwish’s work is his focus on the discursive structure and his attention to the quality of the artistic and linguistic structures. The former contains the many ideas that Darwish aims to deliver to the readers, and the latter results in the use of multiple images and aesthetically pleasing linguistic-rhythmic structures.201 He also adds that there is a close relationship between the poet and his society, which is evident through his focus on Palestinian issues and Palestinian space. This topic highlights Darwish’s poetic experiences, including his recollections of

Palestinian heritage, myths, and history, which leads to Darwish’s work functioning as a record of the spiritual nation of Palestinians and its transformations, effectively showing both the national and human perspectives.202

In the first article of this volume, ‘Al-nāy khayṭ al-rūḥ: Maḥmūd Darwīsh wa shakl al-ṣawt al-ghinā’ī’,203 Subhi Hadidi sheds light on the concept of lyrical voices and the characters in the work of Darwish from 1966 to 1990. There is evidence of the spread of lyrical words in his poetry that occurs in these collections: the 1964 Awrāq al-zaytūn,204 the 1966 ‛āshiq min

200 J. Samawi (ed.), Zaytūnat al-manfā dirāsāt fī shi‛r Maḥmūd Darwīsh, Beirut: Al-mu’ssasa al-ʿarabiyya lil- dirāsā wa al-nashr, 1998. 201 Ibid., pp. 7-8. 202 Ibid. 203 S. Hadidi, ‘Al-nāy khayṭ al-rūḥ: Maḥmūd Darwīsh wa shakl al-ṣawt al-ghinā’ī’, in J. Samawi (ed.), Zaytūnat al-manfā dirāsāt fī shi‛r Maḥmūd Darwīsh, pp. 9-29. 204 (Olive Leaves).

71 filasṭīn,205 the 1967 ākhir al-layl,206 the 1972 collection; Uḥibbuk aw lā uḥibbuk,207 the 1984 collection Ḥiṣar li-mada’īḥ al-baḥr,208 the 1986 collection Hiya ughniya, hiya ughniya,209 and the 1990 Arā mā urīd210 collection. Examples of poems that show lyricism include: ughniya,211 qāl al-mughannī,212 ‛āzif al-jītār al-mutajawwil,213 and jumlah musīqiyya.214

Hadidi’s study also defines the concept of al-ghinā’iyya (lyricism) in Darwish’s work and its aesthetic properties. He initially refers to Shaker Al-Nabulsi’s thought about the principle of lyric texts. Al-Nabulsi explains that the lyric poetry in Darwish’s works was a way of producing poetry through sentimental feelings when discussing ideological and national issues and avoiding rational perspectives.215 Hadidi criticises this concept of lyricism, claiming that it is untrue as it refers only to a romantic understanding of the lyrical poetry in

Darwish’s texts. This affords the heart a greater role than the mind in creating lyrical poetry.216 Hadidi attempted to give a clear, more general definition of lyrical poems; he defined a lyrical poem as being a type of short poem (containing between 30 and 50 lines) that is highly concentrated, subjective, and structurally similar to a song. This definition deemed rhythmic structure as being a necessary element of a lyrical poem.217 Hadidi concludes his study by analysing Darwish’s poem fantāziyā al-nāy.218 Darwish says:

النا ُﻱ خﻴ ُط الرﻭﺡ، خﻴ ط من شعاﻉ أﻭ أبَد The nay is the thread of the soul, a thread of ray or eternity... أب ِد الصدﻯ. ﻭالناﻱ أﻥ يئن أنﻲ ﺭاج ع من حﻴﺚ ,Eternal echo. And the nay moans moaning that I am returning whence I

205 (A Lover from Palestine). 206 (At the End of Night). 207 (I Love You: I Love You Not). 208 (Siege for the Praises of the Sea). 209 (It is A Song, It is A Song). 210 (I See What I Want to See). 211 “The Song”. Darwish, “Ughniya”, in Dīwān Maḥmūd Darwīsh (1), pp. 53-55. 212 It translated as “The Singer Said”. Ibid., pp. 143-146. 213 “A Traveller Guitarist”. Darwish, “‛āzif al-jītār al-mutajawwil”, in Dīwān Maḥmūd Darwīsh (2), pp. 85-92. 214 “A Music Sentence”. Darwish, “Jumlah musīqiyya”, in Al-dīwān: al-aʽmāl al-kāmila 3, pp. 213-218. 215 Ibid., p. 12. 216 Ibid. 217 Ibid., p. 14. 218 “Fantasy of the Flute”.

جئ ﺖ ...came من حﻴ ُﺚ جئ ُﺖ بال ﺭفﻴ ٍق، أﻭ بلد .From whence I came without a 220 companion, or homeland…219

Hadidi explores the connection between the rhythm of the words and their meaning, and how that helps to strengthen the link between the poetic sentences. For example, the repetition of the word ‘al-nāy’ twice in the first line produces a networking rhythm that coherently links the image of the first line to those of the second line. He also uses the dominant first-person pronoun in this text because it helps to portray his sadness more clearly and more personally.221

The third article of the volume ‘Mafhūm al-ramz al-dīnāmīkī wa tajallīh fī al-shi‛r al-filasṭīnī al-ḥadīth Maḥmūd Darwīsh namūdhajan’222 by Mohammed Jamal Baraut examines the definitions of ‘dynamic symbol’,223 which is generally understood to mean the strength of creating poetic words and their relationship to other objects. It employs intuition and dream elements rather than direct expressions to form a unique vision.224 This concept of dynamic symbolism features in Darwish’s work following the Beirut period in 1971. However, the use of the ‘dynamic symbol’ in Darwish’s work is regarded as having a distinguishing quality. He transforms his symbols from personal (related only to the writer) to collective symbols, which

219 It is my translation. 220 M. Darwish, ”fantāziyā al-nāy”, in Al-dīwān: al-aʽmāl al-kāmila 3, Beirut: Riyad Al-Rayys, 2005, pp. 62-65. 221 Hadidi, ‘al-nāī khayṭ al-rūḥ: Maḥmūd Darwīsh’, p. 18, 21. 222 M. J. Baraut, ‘Mafhūm al-ramz al-dīnāmīkī wa tajallīh fī al-shi‛r al-filasṭīnī al-ḥadīth Maḥmūd Darwīsh namūdhajan’, in J. Samawi (ed). Zaytūnat al-manfā dirāsāt fī shi‛r Maḥmūd Darwīsh, pp. 45-75. 223 This term is alike the qaṣīdat al-ru’yā [vision poem] was found in the movement of majallt shi‛r [poetry journal] by the founded of the poetry journal, a Lebanese poet, Yusuf al-Kal in his lectures that introduced the basic theoretical characters of the modern poet, including the explanation of the vison poem that contains historical allusions and vivid images in order to intuition, dream and metaphysic. For further information see: Baraut, Zaytūnat al-manfā, pp. 50-53. 224 Ibid., pp. 49-55.

73 refer to Palestinian people and determine their national identity.225 In the poem ma’sāt al- narjis wa mālhāt al-fiḍḍa,226 Darwish says:

عاﺩﻭا... …They have returned من ﺁخر النفق الطﻮيل إلى مراياهم.. ﻭعاﺩﻭا From the end of the long tunnel to their mirrors… and they returned حﻴن استعاﺩﻭا ِم ل َح إخﻮتهم، فراﺩﻯ أﻭ جماعات، When they brought back the sanctity ﻭعاﺩﻭا.of brotherhood, as individuals or 228 groups, and they returned.227

Baraut suggests that the text draws a picture of a Palestinian epic that describes the return of the Palestinians to their origins (referred to as Canaanites) in the present. This poem, as

Baraut mentions, is a heroic epic that is narrated by a hero, who indicates the return of his people by describing the act of returning to the land that symbolises the Palestine as a holy action, as all Palestinians are willing to return.229 Baraut adds that the narrator of the ma’sāt al-narjis wa malhāt al-fiḍḍā includes the Palestinian traditions, as well as details of how his society lives, which combine to create the epic.230 Thus, Darwish symbolises the return of the

Palestinian national identity and its roots when he moved back from the Canaanites to the

Palestinian identity; he claimed that the poet was the poet of the Canaanites and the

Palestinians.231 He writes, ‘They have recovered what is lost from their dictionary: the olive of Rome in the imagination of soldiers. The Torah of Canaan which is buried under the ruins of temples between Tyre and Jerusalem’.232

225 Ibid., p. 56. 226 “The Narcissus Tragedy- The Silver Comedy”. 227 It is my translation. 228 Darwish, “Ma’sāt al-narjis wa mālhāt al-fiḍḍa”, in Al-dīwān: al-aʽmāl al-kāmila 3, pp. 219-246. 229 Baraut, Zaytūnat al-manfā, pp. 68-69. 230 Ibid. 231 Ibid. 232 Darwish, Al-dīwān: al-aʽmāl al-kāmila 3, p. 229.

The final study of the volume ‘Al-mukawwin al-tanāṣī ‛ind Maḥmūd Darwīsh’,233 written by

Ibrahim Mohammed Abu-Hashhash, explores the forms of intertextuality that form poetic images. This analysis was conducted throughout Darwish’s poetic experiences from his first collection, Awrāq al-zaytūn,234 published in1964, to the A‛rās, printed in 1977.235 The analysis examined limited selections of his work but provided a thorough review of the 1984 collection, Ḥiṣar li-madā’iḥ al-baḥr,236 as it featured the expansion of intertextuality in

Darwish’s poetic experience.

There are different forms of intertextuality in Darwish’s works, ranging from simple intertextuality, such as quotations, to more subtle implications that integrate other texts in new contexts. The latter of these is more deep and esoteric. The intertextual figures are distinguished by the dissolution and absorption of the absent text in the present text; this occurred in Darwish’s career in various stages.237 An example of the deeper intertextuality is seen in the earlier stage of his poem, shahīd al-ughniya.238 Darwish writes:

أعطﻴ ًك ﺩﺭب َك لﻮ سجد َت I'll give you your path if you prostrate أماﻡ عرشﻲ سجدتﻴن! .In front of my throne, twice ﻭلثم َﺖ كفﻲ. فﻲ حﻴاء. مرتﻴن .And kissed my palm, shyly, twice أﻭ.. ..Or تعتلﻲ خشﺐ الصلﻴ ِﺐ You raise the wood of the cross شهﻴد أغنﻴة.. ﻭشمس!A song's martyr.. and sun! 239 240

Abu-Hashhash explains the use of intertextuality in this text that recalls the story of the alleged crucifixion of Jesus, including certain words that are often associated with Jesus, such

233 I. M. Abu-Hashhash, ‘Al-mukawwin al-tanāṣī ‛ind Maḥmūd Darwīsh’, in J. Samawi (ed). Zaytūnat al-manfā dirāsāt fī shi‛r Maḥmūd Darwīsh, pp. 167-188. 234 (Olive Leaves). 235 (Weddings). 236 (Siege for the Praises of the Sea). 237 Abu-Hashhash, Zaytūnat al-manfā, p. 175. 238 “The Martyr of the Song”. 239 It is my translation. 240 Darwish, “Shahīd al-ughniya”, in Dīwān Maḥmūd Darwīsh (1), pp. 167-169.

75 as crucifixion, crown, and thirst.241 Darwish also reflects upon three characteristics of martyrdom. The mask is meant to relate the image of Jesus to an image of Sufism. The third picture recalls the story of the devil’s (Iblis) refusal to prostrate to Adam, as mentioned in the

Quran; Iblis was subsequently removed from the garden.242 In short, the poet depicts the martyrdom of these characters in order to emphasise the struggle for autonomy of ideology and the refusal to accept the Israeli state as being legitimate.243

In his book Mahmoud Darwish: The Poet’s Art and his Nation244 Khaled Mattawa, examines the different phases of Darwish’s work in each of the book’s six chapters. The study begins by reviewing the pioneers of Palestinian literature before and after the 1948 Nakba and its transformations. It then classifies Darwish’s work into four phases: (1) between 1964 and

1971, when the Poet lived under the authority of the Israeli government; (2) between 1971 to

1986, with the theme of national liberation as the main focus; (3) between 1986 and 1993, highlighting the new stage of writing poetry in terms of themes, styles and structures, and digging past history and myths related to the current conditions of the Palestinians; and (4) from 1993 until his death in 2008. Mattawa’s study employs a historical and thematic approach.

Mattawa explores the impact of the 1967 Naksa and the resultant watershed in Darwish’s career. This resulted in Darwish deciding that it was necessary to appreciate the different experiences of Israelis as adversaries by developing his experience that includes another culture (Israeli culture). Darwish sought to demonstrate peaceful co-existence between

Israelis and Palestinians by presenting the Israeli authors who were in favour of coexistence between the two nations; he arranged a number of meetings between Israeli and Palestinian

241 Abu-Hashhash, ‘Al- mukawwin al-tanāṣī ‛ind Maḥmūd Darwīsh’, p. 176. 242 Ibid., pp. 176-177. 243 Ibid. 244 Kh. Mattawa, Mahmoud Darwish: The Poet’s Art and his Nation, New York: The Syracuse University Press, 2014. Available from: JSTOR, (accessed 29 August 2017).

76 writers.245 Darwish’s poetic experience highlighted the notion of coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians following the 1967 defeat. For example, in his poem, jundī yaḥlum bil- zanābiq al-bayḍā’,246 Darwish writes:

He dreams of white lilies, an olive branch and of her breast in evening bloom. He [the Israeli soldier] understood, he told me, that “the country” is to drink my mother’s coffee to return home safely in the evening. 247

This text highlights the close bond between an Israeli soldier and a Palestinian citizen called

Mahmoud. The poem depicts the soldier’s dream of peace through the symbolism of an olive branch. With respect to the poet’s nostalgia regarding his mother’s coffee, Darwish made links between himself and the Israeli soldier (i.e. both were nostalgic due to the memories of their mothers’ coffee).248 However, the soldier exposes his willingness to depart from his nation. He dislikes Darwish because he feels that Darwish ‘simply cannot fathom the idea of leaving his homeland’.249 Mattawa concludes his analysis of this poem with expressions of sympathy from the Israeli soldier, showing his humanity. He uses a monologue to show the soldier’s consciousness of his offences and the fact that he is not willing to commit further offences to secure his future dream.250

The fourth chapter of Mattawa’s study examines the work of Darwish from 1971 to 1986 based on his work outside Israel and his experiences of exile in different countries (i.e.

Moscow, Cairo, and Beirut). Contrastingly, Darwish’s poetic experience during the Beirut

245 Mattawa, Mahmoud Darwish: The Poet’s Art and His Nation, pp. 51-54. 246 “A Soldier Dreams of White Lilies”. 247 It translated by Khalid Mattawa as “A Soldier Dreams of White Lilies” in Kh. Mattawa, Mahmoud Darwish: The Poet’s Art and His Nation, pp. 55-56. 248 Mattawa, Mahmoud Darwish: The Poet’s Art and His Nation, p. 56. 249 Ibid., p. 61. 250 Ibid., p. 59.

77 period of 1973 to 1983 is distinguished by the concept of ‘resistance poetry’. This poetry praises and celebrates the fedayeen’s purpose and their struggle for the liberation of Palestine.

It was caused by ‘his obligation to remain steadfast and loyal to the struggle and its institutions’.251 Ironically, in ṭūbā li-shay’in lam yaṣil,252 the poet celebrated the ‘Palestinian martyr’ by characterising him as a ‘groom’ in light of its association with the traditions of

Palestinian culture and society.253

In the fifth chapter of the book, Mattawa asserts that Darwish’s work continues to develop.

Darwish begins writing poetry with the desire of making his work well-known across the globe, through translations into other languages, such as French.254 Furthermore, Mattawa’s study analyses the transformation of rhythmic structure in Darwish’s collection Wardun aqal, published in 1986,255 as the author began using longer lines of poetry within shorter poems.

These were written mono-rhythmically on a single page, which differs from his work during his time in Beirut (1973-1983); as, at that time, Darwish wrote long poems.256

In Suad A. Alenzi’s thesis titled ‘I am neither there, nor here: An Analysis of Formulations of

Post-Colonial Identity in the Work of Edward W. Said and Mahmoud Darwish: A Thematic and Stylistic Analytical Approach’,257 she examines the theme of identity in Darwish’s work.

The thesis includes seven chapters; each chapter examines a theme in the work of the two

Palestinian authors, Edward Said and Mahmoud Darwish, including: spaces of self-identity, displacement, diasporic existences and the dream of return, the effects of the post-Nakba period and the post-Naksa period on Palestinian identity, and the representation of memory.

251 Ibid., pp. 77-78. 252 “Praise for A Thing That Did Not Arrive”. Darwish, “Ṭūbā li-shay’in lam yaṣil”, in Dīwān Maḥmūd Darwīsh (1), pp. 293-308. 253 Mattawa, Mahmoud Darwish: The Poet’s Art and His Nation, pp. 79-80. 254 Ibid., pp. 94-97. 255 (Lesser Rosses) 256 Mattawa, Mahmoud Darwish: The Poet’s Art and His Nation, p. 98. 257 S. A. Alenzi, ‘I am neither there nor here: An Analysis of Formulations of Post-Colonial Identity in the work of Edward W. Said and Mahmoud Darwish: A Thematic and Stylistic Analysis Approach’, PhD Thesis, The University of Manchester, 2015. Available from: The University of Manchester Library, (accessed 15 November 2016).

This thesis, as Alenzi states, uses interdisciplinary theoretical approaches to illustrate postcolonial identity in psychological, religious, anthropological, and literary fields. Alenzi also applies post-colonial theory and focuses on its concepts of identity, displacement, and hybridity.258 Furthermore, this study pays attention to the role of memory and trauma in transforming self-identity in the work of Said and Darwish. In light of the concept of trauma,

Alenzi relies on Sigmund Freud’s psychological theory and applies it to the works of both

Said and Darwish, exploring the influences of the 1948 Nakba and the 1967 Naksa on their works.259

Suad Alenzi’s thesis addresses the notion of self-identity in the works of Said and Darwish.

She focuses on the after-effects of two landmark historical events (the 1948 Nakba and the

1967 Naksa) on modern Arabic literature, as well as on Said’s and Darwish’s careers.

Although, Darwish asserts his Palestinian and Arab identity, he attempts to represent human identity by ignoring the difficulties of dealing with Israelis, and instead aiming to provoke the conscience of Palestinians to want to live tranquil lives that allow Palestinian and Israeli people to co-exist.260 Darwish had left Palestine and then Egypt to move to Lebanon. Beirut became the poet’s second home, where he was able to ponder over his experiences in exile.

However, he eventually moved on to other places as well. These movements from one place to another gave rise to a hybrid quality to the poet’s self-identity, as Darwish developed affiliations to the countries in which he lived.261

Alenzi also investigates Darwish at a later stage, post-1982, when the poet left Beirut. She tends to analyse historical events and make clear links between the past and the present, through which the 1948 Nakba is paralleled with the loss of Al-Andalus (Spain) in 1492. The

Arabs left Al-Andalus and the Palestinian people were displaced from Palestine five hundred

258 Ibid., pp. 21-22. 259 Ibid., p. 187. 260 Ibid., pp. 15-16. 261 Ibid., p. 145.

79 years later. Emphasising the golden age of Islamic power before the defeat of Granada

(1492), the loss of Al-Andalus is portrayed as being similar to the loss of Palestine in the

1948 Nakba. Both historical events deeply affected the Arab world and Darwish articulates this in his poems.262 For example, in Darwish’s poem, aḥada ʽashar kawkaban ʽalā ākhir al- mashhad al-andalusī,263 in the fourth part, titled anā wāḥidun min mulūk al-nihāya,264 he expresses a sad voice speaking about the end Palestine’s golden history:

As I told my old friends, and no love can redeem me, for I’ve accepted the “peace accord” and there is no longer a present left to let me pass, tomorrow, close to yesterday, Castile will raise its crown above God’s minaret. I hear the rattling of keys in the door of our golden history. Farewell to our history! Will I be the one to close the last door of the sky, I, the last gasp of an Arab?265

Alenzi comments on this passage in which the poet approaches the point of renouncing and taking his leave to Palestinian history in the golden era before the defeat in the 1948 War.266

This poem also connects two historical events that resulted in the failure of Arabs during battles by using an intertextual style to highlight the ‘peace accord’, referring to the Treaty of

262 Ibid., pp. 164-168, 177. 263 The full text was translated into English by M. Anis, N. Ryan, A. S. Ali and A. Dallal as ‘over Andalusia’ from the collection (Eleven Stars). 264 “I Am One of the last Kings”. 265 M. Darwish, ‘Eleven Stars over Andalusia’, Trans. M. Anis, N. Ryan, A. S. Ali and A. Dallal, Grand Street, no. 48, 1994, p. 104. Available from: JSTOR, (accessed 17 April 2017). In the stanza mentioned above [‘I am one of the kings of the end’] Darwish also calls Granada the place where Arabs lost in 1492, similar to the loss of Palestine in 1948. 266 Alenzi, ‘An Analysis of Formulations of Post-Colonial Identity in the work of Edward W. Said and Mahmoud Darwish’, p. 176.

Granada (created 1491) and to the 1993 Oslo Accord267 (signed in 1995). This is relevant to the 1948 Nakba as a large number of Palestinian people were subsequently displaced.268

2.2.2 Previous Studies on the Use of Dramatic Structure in the Work of Darwish

Although there are many Arabic critics who analyse Darwish’s work and the aesthetics of his poetic experiences, there is a gap in scholarship when it comes to examining the use of the dramatic system throughout the poet’s career.

One of the most relevant studies to address the dramatic structure is Asālīb al shi‛riyah al- muʽāṣira,269 written by Salah Fadl. Fadl examines the poetic styles in contemporary Arabic poetry by analysing the expressive styles of pioneering poets. He examines the works of five well-known poets, including Nizar Qabbani, Badr Shakir Al-Syyab, Salah Abd Al-Sabur,

Abd al-Wahab Al-Bayati, and Mahmoud Darwish. The latter is unique as his poetic experience entails the transformations of various styles and includes the use of dramatic structure in its later stages. This examination sought to give a broad overview of the styles of modern Arabic poetry.270

These poets are classified into four groups based on their style.271 The first is the ‘sentimental style’, which is distinguished by high levels of continuous rhythm and grammatical construction, despite low levels of intense imagination and the use of symbols. Examples can

267 It is important to note the change in Darwish’s view on political ideology after the Oslo Accord. He resigned from the PLO as he worked on an exclusive committee and he harshly criticised the Palestinian President, Yasser Arafat, because of the Oslo agreement. Said explores how Darwish’s political perspective became ‘tragic and Swiftian’ referring to Anglo-Arish writer, Jonathan Swift. Further information: E. W. Said, ‘On Mahmoud Darwish’, Grand Street, no. 48, 1994, p. 113. Available from: JSTOR, (accessed 18 April 2017). 268 Ibid., pp. 177-178. 269 Fadl, Asālīb al shi‛riyah al-muʽāṣira, Beirut: Dār al-adāb, 1995. 270 Ibid., p. 8. 271 Ibid., pp. 34-36.

81 be found in many of the poems written by Nizar Qabbani272 and Elias Abu Shabaki. The next style is the ‘vital style’, which focuses on enhancing the internal rhythm with certain changes to a poem’s grammatical structure. This results in the use of varied linguistic constructions and it draws on characters from cultural heritage and mythologies in order to create a mask for the writer. This style can be found in the works of Badr Shakir Al-Sayyab, Amal Donqol, and Ahmad Abdul Muti Hijazi. Fadl defines the ‘dramatic style’ as being a pattern of using multiple voices and linguistic levels to intensify language, leading to high tension and opposing dialogues between the various characters in a poem. This style is seen in the works of Salah Abd Al-Sabur and Mahmoud Darwish. The final kind of poetic style is the ‘vision style’, which is distinguished by the clear contrast of its grammatical structure that affects the clarity of the text and is caused by the use of several symbols and masks. In this style, the writer seeks to create a comprehensive vision through poetic images, but with a weak rhythm due to the poet’s intention to portray his visions rather than his emotions. This approach appears in the works of Abd al-Wahab Al-Bayati, Khalil Hawi and Saadi Yousef.

Fadl explores the aesthetic traits of the various poetic styles by relying on linguistic and stylistic studies, as well as the application of semiotic studies, in particular the work of the

French semiotician, Algirdas Julien Greimas.

Greimas developed the use of the semiotic square, which is a way of analysing the link between signs and context. Fadl also refers to the work of Dutch scholar, Teun A. van Dijk, who is a pioneer of text linguistics with regards to the linguistic analyses of genetic grammar in light of the distinction between the deep and surface layers of a text that leads to the

272 It is important to note that despite the fact that common themes in Nizar Qabbani’s poetry are emotional and romantic, after the 1967 Naksa, he changed his poetic themes to be more realistic and revolutionary. These changes include the use of the dramatic system in Qabbani’s work, which was caused by catastrophic events in Arab world. For further information: B. Abd al-Ṣāḥib. Al-Ṭāyī, Al-bunya al-dirāmiyya fi shi‛r Nizār Qabbani, Baghdad: Dār ḍifāf, 2012. Available from: Ketab, (accessed 30 April 2017).

82 discovering of the generation of linguistic styles in texts.273 Furthermore, this study, along with the works of American linguistic theorists and literary critics, Noam Chomsky and

Roman O. Jacobson, has resulted in an explanation and interpretation of the language of poetry and what distinguishes it from other literary genres.274

Salah Fadl evaluates the dramatic system in Arabic poetry and how it has transformed the

(traditional) poetic form and structure from romantic poetry to a new form of poetry that is more prosaic. He calls this the ‘justice structure’. Fadl conducted a case-study on the works of two well-known Arabic poets, Salah Abd Al-Sabur and Mahmoud Darwish. Fadl also explains the purpose of the dramatic style in poetry: establishing multiple perspectives that reflect the conflict of everyday life and determine the distance between the self and the other.

This dramatic style also embodies Darwish’s thought by demonstrating a deliberate consciousness of the self's different transformations and layers.275 In short, the dramatic structure in poetic experiences is expressed through various voices about a number of issues, including the writer’s view.

Fadl’s book explores the transformation of Darwish’s poetry towards a new form called al- khurūj ilā shakl Ākhar (the creation of another form). The dramatic structure emerges in

Darwish’s long poems through the new form. Fadl explains that this new form of poetry consists of narrative and dramatic characteristics. He notes that Darwish initially began to express the dramatic style in his collection, Ḥabībatī tanhaḍ min nawmihā.276 Published in

1970, when the effect of his lyrical rhythm became weak and was replaced by a new form that was connected to prose genres, such as novels and plays.277

273 Fadl, Asālīb al shi‛riyah al-muʽāṣira, pp. 15-18. 274 Ibid., p. 23. 275 Ibid., pp. 85-86. 276 (My Beloved Rises from her Sleep). 277 Ibid., p. 150.

In the poem titled kitāba ʽalā ḍaw’ bunduqiyya,278 Darwish says:

شﻮلمت انتظرت صاحبها فﻲ مدخل الباﺭ Shulamit awaited her companion at the bar's entrance من الناحﻴة األخرﻯ يمر From the other side lovers pass العاشقﻮﻥ ﻭنجﻮﻡ السﻴنما يبتسمﻮﻥ And the stars smile ألف إعالﻥ يقﻮﻝ: :A thousand adverts saying نحن لن نخرﺝ من We will not leave the forefathers' map" خاﺭﻁة األجداﺩ لن نترﻙ شبراً ﻭاحداً لآلجئﻴن.We will not leave a single handspan for 280 refugees."279

Fadl highlights the beginning of the cinematic scene which consists of a girl called ‘Shulamit’

(a female Jewish name), her boyfriend, and other characters. Besides the use of voices that claim Jewish roots, this poetic scene also features Darwish’s use of the third person pronoun in narrative style to represent a narrator of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.281

Furthermore, this poem is notable for its use of repetition, particularly considering the character of ‘Shulamit’, who helps order the narrative of events. Shulamit recalls her memories and narrates the meetings with her boyfriend who expresses the internal conflict of a soldier. He metaphorically expresses the development and complexity of the conflict and connects the two cultures (Hebrew-Arabic) through a single discourse.282 Darwish writes,

‘She felt his palm preying on her waist, so she cried out: You're not at the frontline.283 He

278 “Writing in the Light of the Rifle”. 279 All the following lines of the poem are my translation. 280 M. Darwish, “Kitāba ʽalā ḍw’ bunduqiyya”, in Dīwān Maḥmūd Darwīsh al-mujallad al-awwal, 7th edn, vol. 1, Beirut: Dar Al-Awda, 1980, p. 523- 541. 281 Fadl, pp. 150-151. 282 Ibid., pp. 151-155. 283 Meaning: frontier of war.

84 said: It's my job! She said to him: But I'm your friend. He said: Whoever masters killing there, kills love here’.284

In the final verses of this poem, Darwish adds a third character called ‘Mahmoud’

(Shulamit’s older boyfriend [an Arab lover]). This character increases the complexity of the political conflict. This political matter is reflected in the metaphorical language of the character (a Jewish woman) in order to express the dichotomy of the situation.285 He writes,

‘Suddenly, her memory took her back. To her first pleasure, to a strange world. She believed what Mahmoud said to her years ago - Mahmoud was a kind-hearted friend, shy he was, he did not ask of her except that she understands that refugees are a people who feel the cold, and the longing for a stolen land’.286

Fadl concludes his analysis of this poem by confirming the notion that by including dialogism and various voices to convey the Palestinian people’s struggle with many dramatic events,

Darwish’s work allows readers to humanise Palestinian issues. Thereby, the dramatic style emerges in Darwish’s poetry to discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Palestinian issues from different viewpoints.287

In Bunyat al-qasīda fī shi‛r Maḥmūd Darwīsh,288 Nasser Ali analyses the construction of

Darwish’s poetry throughout four decades of the poet’s life. He covers the work of Darwish from his 1964 published collection, Awrāq al-zaytūn,289 to his 1999 publication of sarīr al- gharība (The Bed of a Stranger). Ali’s approach analyses Darwish’s work and his poems’ structural transformations in various phases. He examines the artistic constructions of language, imaginary, and rhythm in the poet’s work. Ali divides Darwish’s trajectory into

284 Darwish, Dīwān Maḥmūd Darwīsh al-mujallad al-awwal, p. 528. 285 Fadl, p. 158. 286 Darwish, Dīwān Maḥmūd Darwīsh al-mujallad al-awwal, p. 536. 287 Fadl, pp. 160-161. 288 N. Ali. Bunyat al-qaṣīda fī shi‛r Maḥmūd Darwīsh, Amman: wazāra al-thqāfa, 2001. 289 (Olive Leaves).

85 three stages.290 First, there is the ‘lyrical stage’, which refers to when Darwish lived in his homeland from 1960 to 1970. This stage refers to the period between his first collection in

1960, Awrāq al-zaytūn,291‛asafīr bilā ajniḥa,292 and Ḥabībatī tanhaḍ min nawmihā,293 in

1970. The second stage is the ‘dramatic/lyrical step’, which is called the Beirut period and spans from 1972 to 1982. This poetic period consists of four collections: the 1972 collection

Uḥibbuk aw lā uḥibbuk,294 the 1974 Muhāwalah raqm 7,295 the 1975 Tilka sūratuhā wa hādha intiḥār al-‛āshiq,296 and the A‛rās.297 The third phase is called the ‘epic/lyrical’ stage, and it refers to when the poet left Beirut in 1982 and published his collection Madīḥ alẓil al‛ālī298 in 1983 and Sarīr al-gharība299 in 1999.

These landmarks break down the features of Darwish’s work into various stages. However, these phases are, to some extent, integrated together, as Ali explores the sense of narrative and dramatic structure that start in the early stage of the poet’s work. In these stages, it is evident that his poetry began to move away from the discursive style with direct language, and borrow from other genres, such as stories, novels, and plays. He begins to use narrative and dialogical techniques in the 1966 ‛āshiq min filasṭīn,300 the 1967 Ākhir al-layl,301 and the

1970 Ḥabibati tanhaḍ min nawmiha.302 Darwish continues to develop this new form of writing poetry in his second phase due to the effects of dramatic events on Palestinians as a whole and the poet as an individual.303 Scholars argue over whether or not Darwish began to use this dramatic system prior to 1970. This discussion is related to what Said studied

290 Ibid., p. 22. 291 (Olive Leaves), 292 (Birds without Wings). 293 (My Beloved Rises from her Sleep). 294 (I Love You: I Love You Not). 295 (Attempt Number 7), 296 (That’s her Image, and that’s the Suicide of her Lover). 297 (Weddings). 298 (The Praise of Rising Shadow). 299 (The Bed of a Stranger). 300 (A Lover from Palestine). 301 (At the End of Night). 302 (My Beloved Rises from her Sleep). 303 Ali, pp. 34-36.

86 regarding the emergent scenes of the 1948 Nakba in Arabic literature and how the dramatic system developed after the 1967 defeat.304 In short, the increase of catastrophic events in

Palestine can be seen to be reflected in Darwish’s literary experiences, which recall the

Nakba and the Naksa.

Ali’s study examines Darwish’s work through three developmental stages involving the aesthetic features of the poems’ structure and the juxtaposition of rhythmical verses using free-verse and prose-sentence structures. Significantly, these developments occurred in the dramatic and epic phases [the later phases] of Darwish’s work. Ali highlights how these dramatic and catastrophic events are reflected in Darwish’s poems and are used to develop dramatic structures. The movement from one place to another greatly affected his work, particularly his settling in Beirut following the loss of his homeland. This step is considered to be a great development in his poetic experience as it gave him a broad overview of human consciousness and an understanding of the importance of cultural assimilation.305

2.3 Methodology

2.3.1 Theoretical Framework

This thesis will focus on the dramatic structure in the poetry of Mahmoud Darwish and how the language and culture of this poet’s work have changed and developed post-colonially, especially in the aftermath of the 1967 Naksa through to the 1987 First Intifada. Darwish’s contexts will be analysed by using certain theoretical approaches. Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of dialogism and post-colonial studies will be used to examine the work in question to explore the link between the postcolonial discourse and Darwish’s literary experience and to analyse the developments of his work, particularly the use of the dramatic system.

304 E. Said, Reflections on Exile and Other Literary and Cultural Essays, pp. 51-54. 305 Ali, Bunyat al-qaṣīda fī shi‛r Maḥmūd Darwīsh, pp. 46-47, 56, 79.

Bakhtin’s important study closely examines the theme of dialogism and other concepts, including intertextuality and heteroglossia (polyphonic/social voices). Bakhtin pays attention to the concepts of heteroglossia and intertextuality between literary texts. In particular, his literary theory of dialogical discourse in the novel genre focusses on the discourse in novels, as it is considered a type of dialogue that consists of ‘I’ and ‘other’.306 These concepts (i.e. dialogism, intertextuality and heteroglossia) are apparent in Darwish’s poetry, especially in his work during the period between the 1967 defeat and 1987.

Therefore, this study will adopt Bakhtin’s theory of dialogism, which will help provide a good understanding of Darwish’s work. His work is characterised by the use of dramatic structure, including dialogue and various voices,307 an affirmation of the relationship between the poet and his society. Additionally, the benefit of applying the dialogism theory is to critically evaluate to what extent Darwish’s work articulates the objective voice through the use of different voices and social language.

Bakhtin’s theory of dialogism is used in this research as there is evidence that the work of

Darwish uses certain prose and narrative techniques. The incorporation of novel-like and theatrical characteristics in Darwish’s work proves that Bakhtin’ theory of dialogism applies to poetry. To do this, the theory needs to be applied to a genre other than the one it was created for; it needs to analyse Darwish’s speciality poetic form (the use of dramatic structure) and the sharing of structures between poetry and prose in his literary work.

In Bakhtin’s theory, dialogism generally depicts a close bond between the self (individual) and the other (social). According to Michael Holquist, the dialogue in Bakhtin’s mediation is based on the connection between the individual and the society, who may or may not be speaking from the same point in time and space. These voices discuss diverse points of view

306 M. Holquist, Dialogism Bakhtin and his world, London: Routledge, 1990, pp. 14-15. 307 Fadl, Asālīb al shi‛riyah al-muʽāṣira, p. 161.

88 and simultaneously arise from the cognition of time and space between the self and the other.

The simultaneous relationship between the self and the other concerns the cognitive time and space aspects from different physical spaces and perceptions. In doing so, Bakhtin demonstrates a crucial concept of the simultaneousness of time and space; this concept is regarding two dialoguers talking about one event different positions and views.308 Bakhtin calls this phenomenon ‘chronotope’, referring to the fundamental relationship between time and space in literary works.309

For Darwish, the ‘chronotope’ (time-space relation) can be analysed by analysing his relationship with the homeland (space) and recalling historical events connecting the past and present (time); this is the main feature of Darwish’s work after the Beirut period. As Edward

Said notes, Darwish, linking the loss of Andalusia in 1492, the loss of Palestine in 1948, and the displacement of Arabs and Palestinians, views the homeland as a ‘new Andalusia’. This was in light of the disposing of the PLO from Beirut in 1982 and because the Palestinian people felt submitted and subservient.310

Bakhtin defines the event of existence as dialogue in which a word would have numerous meanings.311 The readers’ spatial and temporal contexts affect the meaning they deduce from the words of the text. Therefore, new readings can renew the meanings of older works.312 For instance, in his poem qaṣīdat al-arḍ,313 Darwish writes:

فﻲ شهر ﺁﺫاﺭ، فﻲ سنة اإلنتفاضة، قالﺖ لنا األﺭﺽ أسراﺭها الدمﻮية . فﻲ شهر ﺁﺫاﺭ م رت أماﻡ البنفسج ﻭالبندقﻴة خمس بنات. ﻭقفن على باب مدﺭسة ابتدائﻴة، ﻭاشتعلن مع الﻮﺭﺩ ﻭالزعتر البلدﻱ. افتتحن نشﻴد التراب. ﺩخلن العناﻕ النهائ ﻲ – ﺁﺫاﺭ يأتﻲ إلى األﺭﺽ يأتﻲ، ﻭمن ﺭقصة الفتﻴات- البنفسج ماﻝ قلﻴ ًال لﻴعبر صﻮت البنات. 314 In March, in the year of the Intifada, the land told us about its bloody secrets.

308 Holquist, Dialogism Bakhtin and his world, pp. 19-21. 309 Ibid., p. 109. 310 Y. Barahmeh, The Poetry of Mahmoud Darwish, pp. 21-23. 311 Holquist, Dialogism Bakhtin and his world, pp. 23-25. 312 Ibid., p.39. 313 “The Land Poem”. 314 Darwish, “Qaṣīdat al-arḍ”, in Dīwān Maḥmūd Darwīsh (2), pp. 515-516.

In March, five girls passed through violets and rifles. They stood at the door of the primary school, flamed with native roses and thyme. They began singing the song about the land. They entered the final cuddle –March comes to the land, it comes because of their dancing – the violets slightly inclined to express the voices of girls.315

The word ‘land’ is assumed to have various meanings, including the narrator/writer;

Palestinian girls; Khadijah (the wife of the Prophet Muhammad); the Palestinian homeland; and the fertility and infertility of the land. These meanings are dependent on certain conditions of time and place (chronotopes), and create social dialogue with other meanings of the word ‘land’, including historical meanings and contemporary meanings related to

Palestinian issues. This illustrates the idea of dialogism, in which a word gains specific meanings based on the different historical and social conditions. In short, the social issues of the Palestinian people play a key role in determining the intended meaning of the word, though the narrator desired the inference of many different meanings over the passage of time. This phenomenon is explained by Bakhtin’s principle of dialogism, which suggests that the temporal and spatial situation of a society has a key role in creating new meanings for words, relating them to current situations.316

Judith Davidson argues that, in his ‘Discourse in the Novel’317 essay, Bakhtin suggests that the purpose of his theory is to explore the discussions between the writer’s thoughts and the views of society by presenting different viewpoints as voices (characters) in the novel, and allowing the writer to act as a character – a theory Bakhtin devised when examining the work of the Russian writer, Fyodor. M. Dostoyevsky. Therefore, the relationship between the individual and his society leads to the creation of dialogism using varied voices, or as Bakhtin calls it, ‘heteroglossia’. This occurs not only in novels but also in other speech and literary

315 This translation is my own. 316 Holquist, Dialogism Bakhtin and his world, pp. 24-25, 38. 317 M. Bakhtin, ‘Discourse in the Novel’, in M. Holquist (ed.), The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays, trans. C. Emerson and M. Holquist, 7th end, Texas: The University of Texas Press, 1990, pp. 259-422.

90 genres, such as in plays and poetry.318 In fact, Bakhtin’s principles of dialogue draw connections between the individual and his society to form differing meanings in texts.

According to Bakhtin, this relationship amongst them affirms the consciousness of individual voices and compares them to the societal views.319

The thesis will also consider the views of post-colonial theorists, especially Homi K Bhabha,

Edward Said and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, who explain post-colonial theory and discuss the impact of colonialism on societal and intellectual discourse resulting from the colonial and imperial powers rejecting national identity and culture. When analysing the transformations in Darwish’s texts, which represent anti-colonial discourse and the voices of

Palestinian cultural identity, memory and resistance, it is crucial to refer to the concepts of post-colonialism and its potential applications on Palestinian literature as well as the work of

Darwish.

In Palestinian Literature and Film in Postcolonial Feminist perspective,320 Anna Ball uses post-colonial theory to analyse Palestinian literature and film. She explains the complexity of the situation and the need (due to the duty to liberate the Israeli-occupied territory) to appreciate post-colonial theory when studying the issue of Palestine and Palestinian literature.

She argues that a number of Palestinian scholars and critics, such as Gershon Sharif, Ilan

Pappe, and Rashid Khalidi, have affirmed that the backing of Zionism came from Western countries, initially from Britain, and later on from the United States. This backing led to multiple imperialistic models being applicable to Palestine, including British colonialism,

Zionism, and American imperialism.321 Post-colonial studies view Palestinians as a victimised and displaced people subject to a symbolic form of colonialism. The people are

318 J. Davidson, ‘Bakhtin as a Theory of Reading’, Champaign: Center for the Study of Reading, University of Illionis at Urbana-Champaign, 1993, pp. 3-4. https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/bitstream/.../ctrstreadtechrepv01993i00579_opt.pdf, (accessed 11 May 2017). 319 Holquist, Dialogism Bakhtin and his world, p. 53. 320 A. Ball, Palestinian Literature and Film in Postcolonial Feminist Perspective, New York: Routledge, 2012. 321 Ibid., pp. 2-4.

91 distinguished through their resistance fighters and the polemical writings of their postcolonial scholars.322

This thesis will examine these post-colonial concepts in Darwish’s work, including the identifications culture (cultural difference), diaspora, hybridity, and subaltern voices and struggle. The term ‘post-colonial’ is theoretically understood to mean the study of ‘all the culture affected by the imperial process from the moment of colonisation to the present day’ due to the continuous occupants through history, largely as a result of ‘European imperial aggression’.323 Post-colonial studies examine the influence of colonial powers on cultures and societies. In the field of literature, post-colonial theory draws lines between, and interacts with, imperial culture and the experiences of the community which has been colonised.324

Furthermore, this theory, as Ashcroft et al. affirm, involves the experience of resistance as a reaction to the discourse of imperialism.325

In Homi Bhabha’s important contribution to post-colonial theory, he explains the effects of master (colonial) discourse on colonised culture. This particularly concerns the authors who give their ‘native accounts’, triggering the autonomy of native voices (i.e. writers that object to colonial discourse (anti-colonialists). However, colonial authors have a tendency to take advantage of the colonial discourse, which uses a counter discourse and allows for a compromise between colonialist and anti-colonialist discourse. These writers are ambivalent with regard to the power of the colonial discourse.326 This leads to the value of the relationship between colonial discourse and their counter arguments, or as Fanon calls it,

‘oppositional discourse’ in postcolonial perspective. Fanon explains that the mixture of imperial power and insurgent natives is necessary to reconstruct the cultural resistance and

322 Ibid., p. 6. 323 B. Ashcroft, G. Griffiths and H. Tiffin, The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-colonial Literatures, 2ed edn, London: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, 2002, p. 2. 324 B. Ashcroft, G. Griffiths and H. Tiffin, The Post-colonial Studies Reader, London: Routledge, 1995, p. 1. 325 Ibid., p. 2. 326 Ibid., pp. 40-41.

92 cultural disruption of the colonised people.327 Literary experiences, which have some characteristics of discursive writing and some of cultural voices, are perhaps able to counter the colonial discourse.

There is evidence for the appropriateness of using post-colonial studies to understand the

Palestinian issue and Palestinian literature, despite it being a complex case of colonialism.

Ball argues that when analysing the connection between these discourses (known as colonial and anti-colonial discourses), the resistance of Palestinian authors evidently helps recover their narration and express their views regarding Palestinian self-determination. This is despite their discourse not being as dominant as colonial discourse due to the silencing, marginalisation, and suppression of Palestinian literary works by the harsh Israeli occupation.328 According to Nurith Gertz and George Khleifi, a model of anti-colonial discourse has emerged amongst Palestinian writers who have used varying methods of countering the suppression of their narrative and affirming their cultural and national identity.329

Another crucial study that links Palestinian literature to postcolonial studies is Bashir Abu-

Manneh’s book titled The Palestinian Novel From 1948 to the Present.330 In this book, Abu-

Manneh argues that the theme of ‘nation’ and its manifestation in Palestinian novels is regarded as a ‘key category for interpreting novels from the colonies’.331 He also refers to a well-known American critic and Marxist theorist, Fredric Jameson, who noted that nationalism in literary contexts is considered the primary element in third world literature.

327 Ibid., pp. 43-44. 328 Ball, Palestinian Literature and Film, p. 2. 329 Ibid. It is important to mention that Gertz and Kheifi’s ideas are quoted in Ball’s work. 330 B. Abu-Manneh, The Palestinian Novel from 1948 to Present, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016. 331 Ibid., p. 10.

This is used to define third world novels as national narratives due to the connection between the individual and the socio-cultural phenomena.332

Thus, national concerns can be seen in Palestinian novels and are regarded as a ‘realist form’ that resulted from the political defeat following the attempted liberation of Palestine during and after the 1948 Nakba.333 Abu-Manneh explains that the Palestinian people’s anti- imperialistic and anti-Zionist struggle reflected on Palestinian literary experiences that convey claims for Palestinian liberation and rights.334 It is therefore, the concept of national form and self-determination, as Ball and Abu-Manneh have examined,335 that largely emerged post-Nakba amongst Palestinian writers. This concept arose due to the 1967 defeat, the subsequent weakness of Arab nationalism, and the expulsion of the PLO from Jordan in

1970, and it led to the growth of ideas of nationalism and Palestinian autonomy.336 The

Palestinian struggle against colonial powers is considered to be complex; the Palestinian experience is unlike the experiences of other Arab countries suffering from the brunt of colonialism. The Palestinian people dealt with colonialism and settler-colonialism and were defeated and as result, dispossessed from their territories, eventually being sent into exile and punished with a diasporic existence.337

Regarding the concept of memory in Darwish’s work, this thesis will apply Pierre Nora’s theory, which explains the concepts of old and new memories. Old memory means the remembrance of past collective national memory, including how people and nations commemorate this national memory. New memory is based on the view of national history held by individuals, groups, and parties who re-construct their historical memories in the new

332 Ibid., p. 11. 333 Ibid. 334 Ibid., p. 16. 335 Ball, Palestinian Literature and Film, p. 2. And see: B. Abu-Manneh, The Palestinian Novel from 1948 to Present, p. 19. 336 Abu-Manneh, The Palestinian Novel from 1948 to Present, p. 19. 337 Ibid.

94 memory, in which the new memory represents individuals’ consciousness of and engagement with the national memory for commemoration.338 Nora’s theory is both important and appropriate to the analysis of Darwish’s work as his texts are regarded to be a memorial moment and a site of memory. The theory also resonates with the author’s study of the anti- colonial aspect of Darwish’s discourse, which includes Palestinian voices and the voice of the poet - who articulates the battle of memory: whether to recall the Palestinian national memory or discontinue it.

2.3.2 Selection of Works by Mahmoud Darwish

This section analyses a selection of Darwish’s poems that consist of dramatic and narrative qualities. It is important to appreciate when he began to use these characteristics that were borrowed from the prose genres and when he began to develop this poetic structure in which he recalls personal and collective memories when discussing Palestinian issues.

A selection of poems from different collections published between 1970 and 2003 will be examined in order to assess Darwish’s use of the dramatic structure in his work which published after 1987 and consider how it transformed his approach to themes, structures, and viewpoints. The analysis of Darwish’s work from the 1970s to the 2000s includes the following texts:

 Kitāba ‘alā ḍaw’ bunduqiyya339 and al-jisr,340 from the 1970 collection; Ḥabībatī

tanhaḍ min nawmihā.341

338 P. Nora, ‘The Era of Commemoration’, in L. D. Kritzman, tran. A. Goldhammer, The Construction of the French Past: Realms of Memory, vol. III, New York: Columbia University Press, 1998, pp. 609-637. 339 “Writing in the Light of the Rifle”. Darwish, “Kitāba ʽalā ḍw’ bunduqiya”, in Dīwān Maḥmūd Darwīsh (1), pp. 523-541. 340 “The Bridge”. Darwish, “Al-jisr”, in Dīwān Maḥmūd Darwīsh (1), p. 565. 341 (My Beloved Rises from her Sleep).

 Sirḥan yashrab al-qahwa fī al-kafiteriya,342 from the 1972 collection; Uḥibbuk aw lā

uḥibbuk..343

 Al-nuzūl min al-karmal,344 from Muḥawalah raqm 7, published in 1974.345

 Aḥmad Al-Za‛tar346 and qaṣīdat al-arḍ,347 from the Aʽrās, printed in 1977.348

 Madīḥ al-ẓil al-‛ālī349 from a collection bearing the same title, published in 1983.

 Qaṣīdat Bayrūt,350 from the collection Ḥiṣār li-mada’īḥ al-baḥr published in 1984.

 Maṭār Athinā351 poem from the collection Wardun aqal, published in 1986.352

 The 1986 collection Dhākirat lil-nisyān.353

 Al-hudhud 354 and ma’sāt al-narjis wa mālhāt al-fiḍḍa,355 from the 1990 collection;

Arā mā urīd.356

 Fī yadī ghayma357 and Laylat al-būm,358 from the collection Li-mādhā tarakt al-

ḥiṣān waḥīdan, published in 1995.359

 Hadhā huwa al-nisyān,360 from the 2003 collection; Lā taʽtadhir ʽamā faʽalt.361

342 “Sirhan Drinks Coffee in the Cafeteria”. Ibid., pp. 175-199. 343 (I Love You: I Love You Not). 344 “Descending of Mount Carmel”. M. Darwish, “Al-nuzūl min al-karmal”, in Dīwān Maḥmūd Darwīsh (2), pp. 215-230. 345 (Attempt Number 7). 346 “Aḥmad Al-Za‛tar”. Ibid., pp. 23-39. 347 “The Land Poem”. Ibid., pp. 49-65. 348 (Weddings). 349 “The Praise of Rising Shadow”. M. Darwish, “Madīḥ al-ẓil al-‛ālī “, in Al-dīwān: al-aʽmāl al-kāmila 2, Beirut: Riyad Al-Rayys, 2005, pp. 331-392. 350 “Beirut’s Poem”. Darwish, “Qaṣīdat Bayrūt”, in Al-dīwān: al-aʽmāl al-kāmila 2, p. 504. 351 “Athens Airport”. Darwish, M. Darwish, “Maṭār Athinā”, Al-dīwān: al-aʽmāl al-kāmila 3, Beirut: Riyad Al- Rayys, 2005, p. 120. 352 (Lesser Rosses). 353 This collection was translated as (Memory for Forgetfulness). M. Darwish, Memory for Forgetfulness: August, Beirut, 1982, tran. I. Muhawi, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995. 354 “The Hoopoe”. Darwish, ‘The hoopoe’, in Unfortunately, It was Paradise, p. 33. 355 “The Narcissus Tragedy- The Silver Comedy”. Darwish, “Ma’sāt al-narjis wa mālhāt al-fiḍḍa”, in Al-dīwān: al-aʽmāl al-kāmila 3, p. 221. 356 ( I See What I want). 357 “A Cloud in my Hand”. Darwish, Unfortunately, It was Paradise, pp. 58-60. 358 “The Owl’s Night”. Ibid., p. 63. 359 This collection was translated as (Why You Leave the Horse Alone) by Jeffrey Sacks in 2006.

2.4 Conclusion

To conclude, this chapter has discussed critical studies that examine the work of Mahmoud

Darwish in terms of the developments to various phases, including the concepts of intertextuality, lyricism, and self-identity, throughout his career. Furthermore, the chapter has laid out the thesis’s methodology and framework regarding the relevant theoretical frameworks and the selection of Darwish’s poems which contain narrative and dramatic languages and characteristics such as myths, dialogues and polyphonic voices as they are described as ‘dramatic structure’ texts.

This chapter also reviewed Fadl’s definition of ‘dramatic style’, which is generally viewed as a form of poetry distinguishable by the use of different voices and linguistic levels to intensify the poem’s language, leading to elevated tension and opposing dialogue between the poem’s characters. The use of dramatic style (or structure) appears in Darwish’s work following the 1967 defeat, in his 1970 collection Ḥabībatī tanhaḍ min nawmihā. His poem entitled kitāba ʽalā ḍaw’ bunduqiyya explains the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the complexity of the Palestinian political issue. The poem is notable for its use of dramatic and narrative languages, including: dialogues that occur between a Jewish woman and her Arab-

Palestinian boyfriend, and between an Israeli soldier and the Jewish girl (Shulamit); different voices (Jewish and Palestinian); cinematic scenes; and narration, employing third person pronouns in a narrative style.

Furthermore, the 1982 Siege of Beirut had a significant impact on Darwish’s work, moving it into a new phase. In this new phase, Darwish evoked pre-Islamic and Andalusian heritage in order to describe Palestinian voices, struggle, and the loss of homeland - comparing the defeat of Granada (1492) and the Arabs’ loss of Al-Andalus to the loss of Palestine in the

360 “This is Forgetfulness”. M. Darwish, The Butterfly’s Burden, trans. F. Joudah, Washington: Copper Canyon Press, 2007, p. 233. 361 (Don’t Apologise for What You’ve Done).

1948 Nakba. In his poem riḥlat Al-Mutanabbi ilā Miṣr, Darwish recalls Al-Mutanabbi’s journey to Egypt in 956, utilising the figure (Al-Mutanabbi) as a mask in order to describe the individual and collective struggles of Palestinian people during their exile. The impact of the

1982 Siege of Beirut also resulted in Darwish using epic, long, and prose poems, whereas his later work was characterised by the transformation of his rhythmic structure to produce short, mono-rhythmical poems.

Chapter Three: The Diaspora Experience and the Loss of Homeland in the Poetry of

Darwish

3.1 Introduction

This chapter will analyse the themes of displacement, exile, and diaspora that are closely related to the identity of the Palestinian people who were forcibly displaced and scattered across different parts over the globe following major historical events including the 1948

Nakba and the 1967 Naksa, the 1982 Siege of Beirut, and the First Palestinian Intifada in

1987. It will elucidate how the diasporic situation led to the self-reflection of the Palestinian community, which brought about some painful negative effects as well as some distinctive positive effects. This historical context is key to understanding the impact of the diasporic experience on the work of Darwish, who himself experienced displacement and exile as well.

The poet’s travels began in Moscow in 1970, they continued in Cairo, and culminated in

Beirut (from 1971 to 1982) where the poet spent his life under the Israeli government. He also lived in Paris. Later on, he returned to Ramallah to live there.362

The chapter also examines the situation of emigrating to different countries and how displacement and diaspora led to the emergence of the dramatic structure in his work, with him using dialogue and multiple-voices.363 Key concepts of postcolonial theory such as displacement, exile, diaspora, marginality, cultural difference and hybridity are used to explore the impact of diasporic conditions on Darwish’s work. The relevance of postcolonial theory is due to his use of the dramatic system and on account of his anti-colonialist, and anti- imperialist discourse.

362 I have presented biographical information about Darwish’s life and work in chapter 1, and addressed the impact of these historical events that occurred between the years 1967 and 1987, including the 1948 Nakba and the 1967 Naksa, the 1982 Siege of Beirut, the 1982 Sabra and Shatila Massacre, and the 1987 First Intifada on his work in both chapters 1 and 2. 363 I defined the meaning of the term ‘dramatic structure’ of poetry in chapter 1.

The chapter begins by discussing the various definitions of ‘diaspora’. It then addresses the conditions of the Palestinian diaspora and explains its uniqueness. This conceptual background will lead to an analysis of the diasporic experience and the loss of homeland in

Darwish’s work during his life in exile. Then, this thesis will explore the characteristics of

Darwish’s post-Naksa work which has greatly developed, in particular the use of narrative and dramatic structures, as he recollects the stories of Palestinian experiences in exile by using narrative and dramatic elements such as dialogues, anecdotes, scenes and various voices. His work also explains how Palestinian diasporic experiences reflect on national identity and the development of individuals’ cultural identity in diaspora.

In addition, the chapter draws on Stuart Hall’s theory of cultural identity which explains the representation of cultural identity in diasporic community through hybridity, difference, resistance and evolving of the cultural identity. Homi K. Bhabha’s theory of cultural difference will be applied. The theory talks about the representation of national identity and ambivalent ideologies in diasporic communities. It also indicates the transformation of cultural identity to configure a new cultural identity through cultural hybridity and difference and cross times (from the past time to the present) and spaces (which means to locate the diversity of culture of diasporic communities). Therefore, a link will be drawn between the concept of cultural identity and difference to explain the work of Darwish that produces complex figures of Palestinian national identity and difference in the diaspora. Additionally, this chapter applies Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s concept of the subaltern to address the subaltern voices and resistance in Darwish’s poetry (Palestinian colonised people/ anticolonial voices) against Israeli occupation and colonialism. His work uses narrative and dramatic structures to represent anti-colonial discourse and resistance.

100

3.2 The Definition of Diaspora

It is essential to define the meaning of diaspora before analysing the diasporic experience, in order to bring to light its relevance to the Palestinian case. This section also discusses Stuart

Hall’s concept of cultural identity in diaspora, which will tie to the case of Darwish’s diaspora and the shifts of Palestinian cultural identity as well as his own cultural identity.

The term ‘diaspora’ has a number of definitions that come from different disciplines.

However, ‘diaspora’ is generally understood to mean the Jewish people who live outside

Israel, spreading to different countries; or it refers more generally to a people who have been dispersed from their original country to other countries.364

Ashcroft et al., define ‘diaspora’ as a kind of movement when populations, whether they were being forced or voluntarily, move away from their native country to scatter to different countries,365 and they (Ashcroft et al) consider ‘colonialism’ to be a kind of diasporic movement which involves whether the temporal or permanent dispersion and settlement around the globe.366 This means that the diasporic situation may apply to both the colonisers who settle in the occupied territories, and the colonised people if they are moved to new places.

However, in anthropological studies, the concept of ‘diaspora’ has been understood to entail a different type of movement. According to Julie Peteet, the term ‘diaspora’ is unlike other general movements, such as refugees, guest workers, settlers, and exiles;367 instead, the term

‘diaspora’ expands to include a vast array of movement and includes dubbed exiles,

364 ‘Diaspora’, Oxford English Dictionary [online], https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/diaspora, (accessed 3 October 2017). 365 ‘Diaspora’, in B. Ashcroft, G. Griffiths, and H. Tiffin, Post-Colonial Studies: The Key Concepts, 3edn, London: Routledge, 2013, pp. 68-70, 81. 366 Ibid. 367 J. Peteet, ‘Problematizing a Palestinian Diaspora’, International Journal of Middle East Studies, vol. 39, no. 4, 2007, p. 629.

101 minorities, ethnic groups, and immigrant communities.368 Peteet also explains that ‘diaspora’ is similar to ghurba in Arabic, pointing to the Hans Wehr definition of the term ghurba to mean the loss of homeland and disconnection from original country to other countries due to

‘banishment, exile; life, or, place, away from home’. Conversely, the term shatāt (diaspora) in Arabic means the situation of breaking up the unity of a people to become dispersed, scattered, fragments, single pieces and sections.369

For Darwish, the experience of diaspora and ghurba in his work is often referred to, as Peteet explains, as ‘manfā (exile)’.370 An example is his poem risāla min al-manfā,371 where he conveys the circumstances of the Palestinian people after being displaced and scattered across different countries. He explains the impact of the displacement on their lives and how it causes them to suffer from lack of the basic essentials of life such as jobs, food and settlement.

However, the wider definition of the term ‘diaspora’ is not only in reference to a particular community, but it includes the ‘diasporic’ communities in general, regardless of their origins.

Agnieszka Weinar argues that the term ‘diaspora’ is defined as roughly any group who moves into new locations.372 Weinar also refers to Van Hear, Pieke, and Vertovec’s definition of diaspora which refers to migrant people who are dispersed in different destinations all over the globe where they create multitude of ties that include ‘flows and exchanges of people and resources: between the homeland and destination countries and among destination

368 Ibid. 369 Ibid., p. 639. And see: H. Wehr, A Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic, (ed.) J. M. Cowan, 3rd edn, New York: Spoken Language Services, Inc, 1976, p. 668. Available from: http://www.ghazali.org/books/wehr- cowan-76.pdf, (accessed 5 October 2017). 370 Peteet, pp. 639-640, 454-455. 371 “A Letter from Exile”. M. Darwish, “Risāla min al-manfā”, in Dīwān Maḥmūd Darwīsh (1), pp. 56-68. 372 A.Weinar, ‘Instrumentalising diasporas for development: International and European policy discourses’, in R. Bauböck and Th. Faist (eds.), Diaspora and Transnationalism: Concepts, Theories and Methods, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2010, p. 75.

102 countries’.373 As a diasporic society, for example, Palestinian people, are somewhat isolated from the members of their host society.374

Furthermore, one of the main features defining a diasporic community, or as William Safran calls it, a ‘minority community’ in light of being exiled, is the retaining of a collective memory that links the people to their homeland.375 Safran points out that this displaced nation is distinguished by its aim to maintain its collective memory, including the mythical and historical narratives that are related to their original land, in order to be proud of their communal achievements.376 Another characteristic of a diaspora is, according to Safran, that it is identified by a national connection. For example, one can refer to African, Greek, Indian, and Palestinian diasporas that give rise to the relationships between diasporic people and their homelands.377

In this postcolonial discourse and identity context of diaspora, it is fundamental to refer to

‘Cultural Identity and Diaspora’ by Stuart Hall. Hall analyses the transformation of cultural identity in diaspora which emerges in forms of African-Caribbean films and cinemas.

According to him, the definition of cultural identity has come to refer to the experience of displacement and diaspora that affects cultural identity. Hall’s main argument is a redefinition of cultural identity based on difference instead of sameness. Namely, despite of difference and disaggregation of the marginal with regard to African identity, it distinguishes itself by containing the powerful and resistant aspects against the colonial identity and discourse.378 As he explains, cultural ambivalence is a sort of ‘binary structure of representation’ of the cultural identity of diasporic community between its present and the

373Ibid., p. 76. 374 Safran, p. 83. 375 W. Safran, ‘Diasporas in Modern Societies: Myths of Homeland and Return’, Journal of Translational Studies, vol. 1, no. 1, 1991, p. 83. 376 Ibid. 377 Ibid., p. 84. 378 Ibid., p. 233.

103 past.379 He also points out that the marginality of diasporic nations such as the Caribbean,

Jamaican and Cuban peoples continues as a permanent consideration vis-à-vis other Latin

American and French Caribbean people (Martiniquais), even for those people that return to a country. Hall writers: ‘We [Caribbean people] are very much ‘the same’ [as other Latin

American People]. We belong to the marginal, the undeveloped, the periphery, the ‘Other’.

We are at the outer edge, the ‘rim’ of the metropolitan world’.380

In addition, Hall refers to the traditional (literal) definition of diaspora in reference to

Palestinian people’s experience, who are being forcedly scattered by Israeli occupation. He writes:

Diaspora does not refer us to those scattered tribes whose identity can only be secured in relation to some sacred homeland to which they must all costs return, even if it means pushing other people into the sea. We have seen the fate of the people of Palestine at the hand of this backward-looking conception of diaspora – and the complicity of the West with it.381

This passage explains the new definition of diaspora, which includes the traditional meaning of diaspora as meaning the dispersal of tribes, but also includes forcible removal of people from their own country to disperse them in various countries around the world. In particular,

Hall refers to the difficult situation of Palestinian people who were forced to leave their homeland and were dispersed in different countries.

379 S. Hall, ‘Cultural Identity and Diaspora’, in Jonathan Rutherford (ed.) Identity: community, culture, difference, London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1990, p. 228. 380 Ibid., pp. 227-228. 381 Ibid., p. 235.

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3.3 The Palestinian Displacement and Diaspora

This section will examine the Palestinian experience of displacement and diaspora, and their effects on Palestinian national identity. It will also refer to Edward Said’s work and perspective about the Palestinian issue and the complexity of Palestinian diasporic experience after the 1948 Nakba and the impact of 1967 Naksa, and the 1982 Israeli Invasion of Lebanon as well as the Sabra and Shatila Massacre on Palestinian people in terms of exacerbating of

Palestinian diasporic situation. Furthermore, this section addresses the self-reflections of diaspora, articulated by Palestinian writers, intellectuals and academics. These writers express their feelings and views of the diasporic existence and recall their stories and memories of the homeland to maintain Palestinian national identity in host countries.

The Palestinian experience of diaspora initially began with the forceful displacement of the

Palestinian people following the establishment of Israel in 1948. This led many Palestinians to become scattered across different parts of the world, creating painful, grief-filled situations amongst them. The hardship of Palestinian diaspora is that Palestinian people were involuntarily exiled and were forced to leave their home and never to return to their homeland. This was enforced by the restrictive rules of the Israeli government that limited

Palestinians’ movement in the occupied territories.

The term ‘displacement’, or ‘internally displaced peoples’, is used by Ashcroft et al to refer to the displacement of people who are ‘forced or obliged to flee or leave their homes or places of habitual residence’.382 This movement might be due to the need to escape the consequences of warfare, and violence, and avoid the violations of human rights, or natural, or human life damages. Ashcroft et al have also listed the eight main effects that result from the displacement of groups, which were given by the Internal Displacement Monitoring

Centre of the Norwegian Council, those include “landlessness; joblessness; homelessness;

382 ‘Displacement’, in Ashcroft, Griffiths, and Tiffin, Post-Colonial Studies: The Key Concepts, pp. 87-88.

105 marginalisation; food insecurity; increased morbidity and mortality; loss of access to common prosperity; and social disintegration”.383 For Palestinians, their internal displacement and being forced to move from their own home to refugee camps led to the diasporic experience and has greatly affected the identity of the Palestinian people. As Said explains, the matter of Palestinian refugees is a matter of complexity and hardship; he writes of the situation about those who suffer from:

The dislocation of being without a country or a place to return to, of being unprotected by any national authority or institutions, of no longer being able to make sense of the past except as bitter, helpless regret nor of the present with its daily queuing, anxiety-filled search for jobs, and poverty, hunger, and humiliations.384

Palestinian writer Liana Badr also explores the impact of the 1948 Nakba on Palestinian identity in light of the mass displacement of the Palestinian people ‘who were dispossessed of all their belongings and thrown away’385 to disperse in refugee camps. As Badr writes:

The Nakba not only changed the way Palestinians, identified with the place of origin, but it also created a new kind of identification with the refugee camp as a transitional but permanent place, a new wounded identity that belongs to a new bitter reality that cannot be changed and overcome until the exiting colonising [Israeli occupation] geography is changed.386

In his book After the Last Sky: Palestinian Lives,387 Edward Said delineates the four major characteristics that define Palestinians, including ‘dispossession, dispersion, and yet also a kind of power incommensurate’ and ‘stateless exile’.388 Moreover, Said identifies another kind of displacement which is inside Palestine under the Israeli occupation, as he argues that

383 Ibid., p. 89. 384 E. Said, Out of Place, p. 119. 385 L. Badr, ‘The Impact of Place on Identity’, This Week in Palestine, 9 August 2014, Available from: http://archive.thisweekinpalestine.com/details.php?id=4220&ed=228&edid=228, (accessed 12 October 2017). 386 Ibid. 387 E. Said, After the Last Sky: Palestinian Lives (Photographs by Jean Mohr). New York: Columbia University Press, 1999. 388 Ibid., p. 6.

106 the exile of the Palestinian people is ‘at home as well as abroad’.389 Said also analyses the conception of the ‘interior’ exile, or as he calls it min al-dākhil, which is used to refer to the

Palestinians who resided in Israeli territories between 1948 and 1967. This includes the

Palestinians who lived in South Lebanon in refugee camps.390 Additionally, Said examines the key role that Palestinians played within Palestine: this is their maintenance of the

Palestinian identity and resistance ‘against the displacement operations’.391 He explains:

‘Every effort we [Palestinians] make to retain our Palestinian identity is also an effort to get back on the map, to help those fil-dākhil to keep their precarious foothold’.392

Therefore, the Palestinian diaspora can be grouped into three categories.393 The first is the

‘internal diaspora’, referring to Palestinians (Arab Palestinians) who remained in Palestine after the 1948 Nakba and were dispersed by the restrictive Israeli control of their movements.

Their connections to other Palestinians, particularly in the West Bank and Gaza, were restricted. This was due to ‘pure planning or political planning’ by the Israeli state to separate the Arab-Palestinians living in the occupied territories,394 and, more significantly, to make impossible the connections between all inner and outer Palestinians.395 Therefore, a diasporic situation was created amongst Palestinians who resided in Palestine and received unfair treatment as they were dispossessed and marginalised by the Israeli authorities. This relationship between a subordinate society (Palestinians) and a dominant and powerful society (Israelis) is viewed as a Palestinian struggle and is thought to confirm their identity,

389 Ibid., p. 11. 390 Ibid., p. 51. 391 Alenzi, ‘I am neither there nor here: An Analysis of Formulations of Post-Colonial Identity in the work of Edward W. Said and Mahmoud Darwish’, p. 155. 392 Said, After the Last Sky, p. 62. 393 Alenzi classifies the Palestinian diaspora into four categories as the diaspora inside Palestine that is marked by two historical events namely the 1948 Nakba and the 1967 Naksa which should be combined in one group called the ‘internal diaspora’. For further information see: Alenzi, ‘I am neither there nor here: An Analysis of Formulations of Post-Colonial Identity in the work of Edward W. Said and Mahmoud Darwish’, pp. 161-164. 394 Said, After the Last Sky, pp. 19-20. 395 Peteet, International Journal of Middle East Studies, p. 634.

107 connecting the people to their homeland.396 The impact of the internal diaspora is also reflected by Palestinian writers who remain in Israeli occupied territories and are in favour to express their views by writing in Hebrew rather than in Arabic. Darwish notes that the reasons of writing in Hebrew among Palestinian authors as a means to create a new trend of writing (fashion writing), confirms Palestinian resistance against Israeli occupation, and creates a discourse that addresses the occupier in their own language, as well as integrating

Israeli culture.397 In fact, it is this internal diaspora that resulted in many Palestinian writers choosing to write their literary works in Hebrew. This choice of writing in Hebrew is a direct consequence of the colonial discourse (Israeli coloniser) that due to Arabic language being unknown amongst the majority of Israelis, writing in Hebrew for Palestinians has some characteristics where they can articulate different voices. They represent modernity and liberation and have more opportunities to publish their works. That being said, they never identify as Israeli-Hebrew authors of Hebrew literature, and in political identity they cannot be Israeli citizens.398

The second group is the Palestinian people who were displaced and were forced to live in neighbouring countries around Palestine, such as Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan. Peteet calls this experience as ‘proximate exile’ to nearby countries.399 Alternatively, they fled to stay in

Egypt and the Gulf countries. Despite the fact that Palestinians share some similarities with neighbouring countries in relation to language, culture, and nationality, they are denied integration with citizens in Arab countries and cannot acquire a citizenship in those

396 N. Luz, ‘The Politics of Sacred Places: Palestinian Identity, Collective Memory, and Resistance in the Hassan Bek Mosque Conflict, Environment and Planning D, Society and Space, vol. 26, no. 6, 2008, pp. 1041- 1044. Available from: SAGE Journals, (accessed 17 October 2017). 397 Y. Suleiman, Arabic in the Fray: Language Ideology and Cultural Politics, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2013, pp. 195-212. 398 Ibid. 399 Peteet also states the bulk of Palestinians who fled from Palestine to separately live in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan that exceed more than half of total 10.091,985 Palestinian population. Peteet, p. 632.

108 countries.400 The exception is in Jordan, in which Palestinians ‘are given special cards which identify them as Palestinian refugees’.401

Thus, the Palestinians who were refugees in those host countries were largely affected by the dramatic events following the 1967 Naksa. For instance, the 1982 Israeli Invasion of

Lebanon, including the Sabra and Shatila Massacre, resulted in the loss of many Palestinian people402 and an exacerbation of their diasporic situation. Furthermore, Palestinian people dealt with dire circumstances when living in Arab countries. Regarding this, Said writes:

The suffering of the first generation of Palestinian refugees, scattered throughout the Arab world, where invidious laws made it impossible for them to become naturalised, unable to work, unable to travel, obliged to register and re-register each month with the police, many of them forced to live in appalling camps like Beirut’s Sabra and Shatila.403

The third category of Palestinian displacement and diaspora involves the Western and non-

Arab countries. A group of Palestinians emigrated there, considering themselves to be ‘exiles or diasporic’.404 These Palestinians in Western countries also suffered from diasporic situations because they were scattered in these countries, leading to reduced communication with their forsaken homeland, and imagining themselves as ‘strangers in stranger lands’.405

In the ‘Reflections on Exile’ essay,406 Edward Said explores the psychological and sentimental effects of being exiled that led to the feeling of sadness and estrangement amongst the Palestinian community.407 He also explains the relationship between exile and national identity with respect to exiled people who confirm their attachment to the homeland

400 Peteet, p. 632. 401 Said, After the Last Sky, pp. 11-12. 402 Ibid., p. 19. 403 Said, Reflections on Exile and Other Literary and Cultural Essays, pp. 562-563. 404 Peteet, p. 640. 405 Safran, p. 87. 406 E. Said, Reflections on Exile and Other Literary and Cultural Essays, London: Granta Books, 2001. 407 Ibid., pp. 173-186.

109 and demand political rights whilst living as expatriates.408 This connection is rationally discussed due to the necessity to rebuild the fragments of exiles. In contrast, the experience of exile and the loss of land have some positive points.409 One of the main positives, according to him, is that the exile of the Palestinian community enhances their ‘sense of group solidarity, and a passionate hostility to outsiders’.410 Said also comments on the Palestinian experience of exile and the affirmation of national identity in order to enhance the political power and claim to the right to return to their homeland.411

Regarding another positive aspect caused by the Palestinian experience of exile in terms of self-awareness and cultural development crossing various cultures, Said explains:

There are some positive things to be said about [exile] for a few of its conditions. Seeing “the entire world as a foreign land” makes possible originality of vision. Most people are principally aware of one culture, one setting one home; exiles are aware of at least two, and this plurality of vision gives rise to an awareness of simultaneous dimensions.412

Furthermore, the narratives of Palestinian experiences of exile and diaspora have been demonstrated by many Palestinian intellectuals and writers, shedding light on the self- reflection of the exiled people dispersed across the world.413 Addressing these writers’ views of their experiences of diaspora would enhance our understanding of the impact of the diasporic experience on the work of Darwish, particularly his experience after the 1967

Naksa and the Beirut period (1971-1982) that distinguishes his work by expressing his people’s voices and his voice talking about the experiences of diaspora.

408 Ibid., pp. 176-177. 409 Said affirms that his own experience of exile and diasporic that led to positive effects rather than negative effects, particularly his life in the US when he developed his knowledge, self-invasion and thoughts. For further information see: Said, Out of Place, pp. 222-223. 410 Said, Reflections on Exile and Other Literary and Cultural Essays, p. 178. 411 Ibid. 412 Ibid., p. 186. 413 Ibid.

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In his edited book Being Palestinian: Personal Reflections on Palestinian Identity in the

Diaspora, Yasir Suleiman,414 relates the reflections of Palestinians from countries across the world, such as Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom on their condition of exiles. The reflections of various generations are given, expressing their experiences of diasporic life and how the diaspora led to self-reflections about their identities.

In Suleiman’s book, the renowned Palestinian physician, writer, and academic, Ghada Karmi, speaks of the effects of the diasporic existence on her, including deep sadness, gloominess, insecurity, and the lack of a social-communication environment and supporters throughout the diasporic phase. The exacerbation of the Palestinian tragedy, according to Karmi, is because of the unsettled lives of Palestinians and the impossibility of their return to

Palestine.415 Moreover, Lisa Suhair Majaj, a Palestinian-American poet and writer, highlights the typical form of Palestinian displacement, which is distinguished by the continual movements from one place to another. She experienced various translocations to different countries (the United States, Jordan, and Lebanon) and created multiple identities with the close relationships to the homeland.416 Moreover, Majaj recalls her memory with respect to the Palestinian smells and the connection to the land, when she evokes the smell of ‘Jericho oranges, the ritual of cardamom-scented coffee and the scent of Nabulsi soap’, which she never forgets.417 Indeed, Palestinians aim to keep sensory memory of their national identity and the links to their homeland.

Another author who discusses the effects of the diasporic existence on the Palestinian people in Suleiman’s edited volume is Salma Khadra Jayyusi, a Palestinian poet, critic, and

414 Y. Suleiman (edt.), Being Palestinian: Personal Reflections on Palestinian Identity in the Diaspora, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2016. 415 Karmi, ‘Fitting Nowhere’, in Suleiman, Being Palestinian: Personal Reflections on Palestinian Identity in the Diaspora, pp. 221-223. 416 L. S. Majaj, ‘Homemaking’, in Suleiman, Being Palestinian: Personal Reflections on Palestinian Identity in the Diaspora, pp. 241-243. 417 Ibid.

111 academic specialising in the study of Arabic literature. Jayyusi explores a feature of ‘internal strength’ amongst the Palestinian people despite their feelings of estrangement and the painful permanent loss of the homeland.418 The interpersonal characteristics of the

Palestinians include them being ‘dedicated, self-sacrificing, courageous, intelligent, successful, pioneering, enterprising, and-despite their tragedies-robustly alive’.419 In her self- reflection of diaspora, Jayyusi also explores the memories of her homeland during her diasporic life, including her memories of its landscapes and of her happy and settled childhood. In contrast, the circumstances of the Palestinian diaspora contain sadness and different dramatic stories resulting from the impact of the colonial powers during the British

Mandate and then under the Israeli occupation. This diaspora resulted from the large-scale killing of Palestinians and the displacement of the Palestinian peasants who were forced to leave their fields and never return to them.420

For some Palestinians, expressing their personal reflections of their diasporic existence is difficult due to the complexity of their experiences. For example, Dina Matar, a Palestinian writer and academic in Politics and Cultural Communication, has not faced the forced displacement and humiliation that the majority of Palestinians have faced as she lived with her family in Palestine until 1988, after which they moved to the United Kingdom. Matar’s life in Britain initially began with comfort and adaptation to the new surroundings. She was preoccupied with her work and was not concerned with being disconnected.421 Nevertheless, she later on came to understand that it was necessary to engage with the struggle of the

Palestinians. She articulated her ideas surrounding national identity following the Second

418 S. Kh. Jayyusi, ‘The Durable Cords of Memory’, in Suleiman, Being Palestinian: Personal Reflections on Palestinian Identity in the Diaspora, pp. 206-209. 419 Ibid., p. 209. 420 Ibid., p. 208. 421 D. Matar, ‘In But Not of’, in Suleiman, Being Palestinian: Personal Reflections on Palestinian Identity in the Diaspora, pp. 259-261.

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Intifada in 2000 and the 2001 September 11 attacks, when the atrocious Israeli incursions into the West Bank broke out as part of the campaign of the ‘war on terror’.422

A well-known Palestinian academic, translator, and scholar of Palestinian-Arabic folklore and English literature, is Ibrahim Muhawi, who affirmed his national identity despite his life outside of the homeland, reverberating Darwish’s poem anā min hunāk.423 His experiences of the diaspora link the Palestinian identity and his recollections of the homeland including his remembering Palestinian cuisine, particularly that which was cooked by his mother. He also remembers his participation in many events, such as folk festivals and weddings, in which there was the dabka and a range of national songs representing national folklore and culture.424

A Palestinian academic and writer in Islamic studies and Arabic media, Khaled Hroub, mentions that over half of the people from his village, Wadi Foukeen (near Bethlehem), were displaced due to the 1948 Nakba and the loss of larger territories after the 1967 Naksa. He also delineates his exiled situation that consists of moving from city to city following his departure from his birthplace, Wadi Foukeen. He explains his contrasting feelings of living in different cities and having a temporary attraction but a lack of affiliation to those places.

Hroub writes: ‘I am a timeless and cityless man. I belong to nowhere and to everywhere. I

422 Ibid., p. 260. 423 “I Belonging There”. M. Darwish, Unfortunately, It was Paradise, p. 7. Darwish wrote this poem when he lived in Paris in 1986, as he calls childhood memory and the memory of homeland in particular, his birthplace village called Al-Birweh where he was born and lived. As he dealt with two displacements, the first displacement was, when his family and he were forcibly displaced to Lebanon in 1948 and they illegally returned. The second displacement was after 1970, he moved to different countries (as he moved from city to city including Moscow, Cairo, Beirut, Tunis and Paris). He also recollects with the pain feelings of sorrow and grieve his home, family, friends and the landscapes of the homeland and the immortal olive in order to emphasise the essential of maintenance Palestinian identity in diaspora. 424 I. Muhawi, ‘Parsley Miyramiyah, Rosemary and Za‛tar’, in Suleiman, Being Palestinian: Personal Reflections on Palestinian Identity in the Diaspora, pp. 274-276.

113 move between cities. I love them and stay in them, or dislike them and leave them, just an unfaithful lover’.425

In addition, Hroub explains his experience of displacement and diaspora as being in lonely and orphan-like situations, evoking Jesus and his continual displacement to various places.

Jesus and Hroub were both born in or around Bethlehem and he highlights that they looked similar, with brown eyes and dark hair.426

What is more, the Palestinian diaspora relates to people who commute to or move from city to city whilst dealing with several kinds of oppression. As a Palestinian-American author and academic in Anthology and Women and Gender Studies, Lila Abu-Lughod illustrates her personal reflections of her diasporic experience when moving from Egypt to the United

States and suffering the ‘humiliation and special status, anger and gratitude, helplessness and determination’427 that many Palestinians also suffer from. They deal with these conditions but they remain resilient and silent.

In short, exile can have good as well as bad implications. Palestinian writers express the positive effects of diasporic existence in both internal and external diasporas that resulted in the increase of the internal strength, communal solidarity, consciousness, national identity and cultural development of the Palestinians. However, there are also negative effects of the diasporic existence which led to the feelings of sadness, dejection, estrangement, and insecurity, as well as a lack of social communication and support. Furthermore, the experience of exile and diaspora has greatly affected Darwish and has had lasting effects on his work in terms of its themes, style and structures, which will be analysed in the following section.

425 Kh. Hroub, ‘Living in Letters or the Arrogance of A Cityless Man’, in Suleiman, Being Palestinian: Personal Reflections on Palestinian Identity in the Diaspora, pp. 192- 194. 426 Ibid., p. 194. 427 L. Abu-Lughod, ‘Buffeted By How Others See You’, in Y. Suleiman (edt.), Being Palestinian: Personal Reflections on Palestinian Identity in the Diaspora, pp. 31- 33.

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3.4 The Conceptualisation of Diaspora and the Loss of Homeland in Darwish’s Work

Following on from the above discussion about the concepts of displacement and diaspora contextualising the Palestinian experience, this section will analyse Darwish’s work in light of the experience of diaspora and how it is reflected in his work which represents the transformation of cultural identity through hybridity and difference. This section will address the effects of exile and diaspora on Darwish’s work through the lens of postcolonial theory and criticism. It will apply Hall’s concept of cultural identity, Bhabha’s concept of cultural difference/ambivalence and Spivak’s concept of the subaltern because these concepts are appropriate for analysing the work of Darwish in terms representing the configuration of culture and identity of Palestinians’ marginal discourse and subaltern voices in diaspora.

This section will examine the use of narrative and dramatic structures in Darwish’s post-

Naksa work, as he recollects the stories of Palestinian experiences in exile, and how these diasporic experiences reflect on Palestinian national identity and the development of individuals’ cultural identity in diaspora.

In general, Palestinian literary works written about the diaspora are characterised by the themes of physical and psychological suffering. They speak of diasporic and exiled conditions that are caused by the mass displacement of thousands of Palestinians from the homeland particularly following the 1948 Nakba and the 1967 Naksa and during the 1982

Israeli invasion of Lebanon, in which many Palestinians including women and children were killed.428 These works include subjects of ‘death, tragedy and defeat’, but Palestinian literature never has the overall messages of despair, disappointment, or frustration.429

Palestinian diasporic discourse in literary works, and its transformations throughout the diasporic existence, according to Rami Abu Shehab, features narratives surrounding refugee

428 S. M. Gohar, ‘Narratives of Diaspora and Exile in Arabic and Palestinian Poetry’, Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary in Humanities, vol. 3, no. 1, 2011, p. 233. 429 Ibid., pp. 230-231.

115 issues, traumatic displacements (the Nakba and the Naksa), resistance, the right of return, the struggle of the nation, and the creation of human dimensions in representing the Palestinian issues.430

Moreover, the Palestinian diasporic literary writers have been divided by Abu Shehab431 into two categories. The first group (first generation of novelists and poets of modern Palestinian literature) includes the works of Ghassan Kanafani, Emile Habiby, and Jabra Ibrahim Jabra; whom Abu Shehab refers to as ‘ancestors’ who faced the suffering of the displacement, which led them to explore the notions of anger and loss of homeland in their works.

The second group (second generation of modern Palestinian writers) includes young writers, such as Sahar Khalifeh, Radwa Ashour (late Egyptian writer, married to the Palestinian poet

Mourid Barghouti), Ibrahim Nasrallah, Liana Badr and Susan Abulhawa; whom Abu Shehab calls the ‘descendants’. Their writing tends to recall the story of Palestinian displacement through the recollection of family memories, school curricula, and previous literary works, leading to the themes of reflective perspectives and the desire of returning to the homeland.

These latter authors also represent the confusion and paradox of the diasporic existence, as the authors describe the difficulty in maintaining relationships with their homeland and living in harmony in their new countries of residence, connecting and communicating with the locals.432

The work of Darwish conveys the story of the Palestinian people’s experiences in exile and how these experiences have influenced their lives. Like them, Darwish was also displaced twice, once after 1948 when he left the homeland and moved to Lebanon, and the second time during the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon and the siege of Beirut in the same year,

430 R. Abu Shehab, Fī al-mamar al-akhīr: sardiyyat al-shatāt al-filasṭīnī manẓūr mā b‛d kūlūnyālī, Beirut: Al- mu’ssasa al-ʿarabiyya li-dirāsā wa al-nashr, 2017, pp. 75-82. 431 Ibid., pp. 87-88. 432 Ibid.

116 which led to Palestinians being expelled from Lebanon and relocated into other countries such as Tunisia, Jordon, Algeria and Iraq. The hallmark of Darwish’s work between 1971 and

1986 was its engagement with the diasporic experience of the exiled Palestinian people.

Despite the fact that the poet had mentioned exile in his early phase, the exile motif has been developed as a theme in his poetry after 1971.433

During his early phase, Darwish discovered the physical and psychological effects of continual displacement on Palestinians living in hardship. They lacked food and were in dire conditions, although they remained resistant and optimistic, as seen in his poem risāla min al- manfā434 in which he writes:

من أين أبتدﻱ؟ .. ﻭأين أنتهﻲ؟ .. ?From where do I begin? And where do I end ﻭﺩﻭﺭﺓ الزماﻥ ﺩﻭﻥ حد When the cycle of time is without limit ﻭكل ما فﻲ غربتﻲ And all that which is in my estrangement ﺯﻭاﺩﺓ . فﻴها ﺭغﻴ ف ياب س ، Is a provision. Made up of a dry loaf of bread, and ﻭﻭجد longing ﻭﺩفتر يحمل عنﻲ بعض ما And a folder which carries for me some of which حملﺖ.I carried.435 436

This poem illustrates the impact of displacement and exile by displaying the circumstances of exiled Palestinians. They were homeless, jobless, but they pretend to say ‘we are fine’,437 seeking to develop their education and self-reliance, while dealing with the lack of food and continual exile from one place to another, never to return to their home country. Darwish, in the fifth section of this poem, articulates the theme of death through the eyes of an exiled existence, something that he recognises as a sort of death. He writes:

‘What did we commit, O mother? So that we die twice, once we die in this life, and another time we die at death! Do you know what fills me with tears? What if I became ill one night… And the sickness destroyed my body! Does the evening remember a

433 Mattawa, Mahmoud Darwish: The Poet’s Art and His Nation, p. 72. 434 “A Letter from the Exile”. 435 All the following lines from the poem are my translation. 436 Darwish, “Risāla min al-manfā”, pp. 56-57. 437 Ibid., p. 64.

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migrant who came here? And did not return to his nation? Does the evening remember a migrant who died without a death- shroud?’438

Here, death is spoken about in a manner common among exiled Palestinians due to their inhumane treatment and the injustices inflicted upon them in their host countries whose states prevent them from their basic rights to enter the education and health services, leading to the feeling of being dead (i.e. in an unhappy life) before their actual death. For example, in the above stanza, Darwish mentions being buried without a shroud. This concept of death during exile parallels Said’s thoughts regarding exile. He writes:

It [Exile] is irremediably secular and unbearably historical; that it is produced by human beings for other human beings; and that, like death but without death’s ultimate mercy, it has torn millions of people from the nourishment of tradition, family, and geography.439

As Said argues, forced exile is never associated with a sense of humanity, and it does not make for an aesthetic subject in literary works because of its association with suffering, inhumanity, alienation and death.

By distinguishing Darwish’s work that speaks of the marginal voices of working class groups, especially the peasants as a subaltern class to identify Palestinian people in their struggle against Israeli occupation and colonialism, it is generally assumed that the work of

Darwish is regarded as the voice of the voiceless people and their story of displacement and diaspora.440

In her essay ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’,441 Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s main argument is based on the critique of western and Marxist view to other regions and cultures. Form

438 It is my translation. 439 Said, Reflections on Exile and Other Literary and Cultural Essays, p. 174. 440 B. Bhillon, ‘Subaltern Voices and Perspectives: The Poetry of Mahmoud Darwish’, Journal of the Centre for Studies in Religion and Society Graduate Students Association, vol. 9, no. 1, 2010, pp. 45-65. 441 G. C. Spivak, ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’, in C. Nelson and L. Grossberg (eds.), Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, Basingstoke: Macmillan Education, 1988, pp. 67-111.

118 traditional Marxist thought to Michal Foucault, Gilles Deleuze believes the level of knowledge and consciousness of subaltern classes (peasant and worker groups) is ethnically different from one region to other regions. This misreading of the subaltern consciousness includes the subaltern studies group as all of them emphasise the assumption of ‘pure form consciousness of subaltern groups as they are regarded a ‘second-order problem.442 She regards these western scholars to be in collaboration with the European colonialist project and its hegemony. The colonial project obliterates subaltern societies (colonised people) in terms of the dominance of the knowledge of the coloniser which is seen as superior to the knowledge of the subaltern which is considered to be insufficient and ‘low down on the hierarchy’.443

She compares this to the classification of social classes all over the globe polarised in the first and third world in terms of economic interests and the ‘ideology of consumerism’ exploiting the third world because of the low-cost of working labour.444

What makes Spivak’s work distinctive is her dynamic definition of ‘subaltern’ which contains elite (specialised) people and non-specialised people, including the ordinary people of society who articulate their conscious voices confirming their national identity and resistance as she terms ‘subaltern classes’ against dominant classes.445 She also illustrates the importance of applying the deconstructionist theory, established by Jacques Derrida. In

Spivak’s study of subaltern in relation to the value of deconstruction regarded as agential space to examine the subaltern classes, leading to the first phase of decolonisation.

One might regard the colonised Palestinian society/ people, as subaltern class/people prevented from developing Arab culture because of Israeli dominant culture and class. As indicated in Chapter One, the prevention of learning Arabic language and culture in

442 Ibid., p. 81. 443 Ibid., pp. 76, 83. 444 Ibid. 445 Ibid., pp. 79-80.

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Palestinian schools which were under the authority of Israeli occupation and colonialism is substituted with Israeli culture and knowledge.

The work of Darwish post-Naksa encounters Israeli occupation and hegemonic discourse and colonialism and represents Palestinian marginal discourse and subaltern voices as well as his own voice in the diaspora. He uses the dramatic structure to show the Israeli-Palestinian conflicts and Palestinian national voices and struggle.

The use of the dramatic system explicitly appears in Darwish’s poem Sirḥan yashrab al- qahwa fi al-kafitīriyā.446 In this poem, which was published in 1972 as part of the collection

Uḥibbuk aw lā uḥibbuk.,447 he applies different narrative and theoretical characteristics such as dialogue, polyphony, or to use Bakhtin’s term ‘Heteroglossia’, which means the state of large number of responses who express their views about specific topics from different points of view.448 The dramatic structure also includes the conflict between characters. This poem describes the narrations of Palestinian lives in diaspora, with themes of grievance, loss, and dislocation. Darwish tells the story of the murder of the brother of the American president,

Senator Robert Kennedy, who was assassinated by a Palestinian-Jordanian refugee (Sirhan

Bishara Sirhan) living in the US. This event took place in 1968 as an aftermath of the 1967

Naksa, which, according to Darwish, embodies the narrative of Palestinian exiles who face injustice and struggle.

Additionally, the use of dramatic system in Sirḥan yashrab al-qahwa fī al-kafiteriya, is also because his desire to speak of Palestinian narratives show anti-colonial voices and subaltern struggle against Israeli occupation. This poem begins by narrating scenes of the Palestinian tragedy that explain the shock of the Palestinian people following the 1967 Naksa. The hardship and pain suffered by the Palestinian people due to their displacement is reminisced

446 “Sirhan Drinks Coffee in the Cafeteria”. 447 (I Love You: I Love You Not). 448 Holquist, Dialogism Bakhtin and his world, pp. 69-70.

120 about. Memories of the unforgettable experiences of the Palestinian displacement caused by the catastrophic events in 1948 and the Six-Day War in 1967 are relived. The Israelis are shown to then come from the open gate of the sea, resulting in the Palestinian community facing further exile. Since the 1948 defeat Israeli settlers seized Palestinian land and looted their possessions, such as their homes, furniture, lands, and produce. The Palestinian land or nation, according to Ahmed Al-Zoubi, metaphorically became a carpet for them, which could easily be moved from one place to another while its true owners keep suitcases with them in case they are relocated again.449 He says:

يجﻴئﻮﻥ، They come أبﻮابنا البحر، فاجأنا مطر. ال إله سﻮﻯ هللا. فاجأنا Our doors are the sea, the rain surprised us. There is no god but Allah. Rain and bullets alarmed us مطر ﻭﺭصاﺹ. هنا االﺭﺽ سجاﺩﺓ، ﻭالحقائﺐ Here, the earth is prostrating, and the bags غربه! !Are estrangement يجﻴئﻮﻥ، ,They come فلتترجل كﻮاكﺐ تأتﻲ بال مﻮعد. ﻭالظهﻮﺭ التﻲ Let planets which come without appointment disembark. And the backs which استندت للخناجر مضطرﺓ للسقﻮﻁ.Leaned on daggers forced to fall.450 451

This traumatic scene is clearly dramatised in this poem as one of the most horrific scenes caused by the 1948 Nakba and the 1967 Naksa. Darwish also explores the two major causes of the 1967 Six-Day defeat. These include the Palestinians not expecting the event and their reliance on old and underdeveloped weapons.452 He mentions the use of khanājir (daggers) by the Palestinian resistance fighters in the war, when they fought their rivals during the

Israeli-Palestinian conflicts in the Naksa; the Israeli military had much more advanced weapons.

449 A. Al-Zoubi, ‘Faḍā’āt qaṣīdat Sirhan yashrabu al-qahwa fi al-kafiteriya’, al-Khalīj, 2 January 2010, Available from: http://www.alkhaleej.ae/supplements/page/920997b4-6e19-49af-88d6-eb09c82ce71a, (accessed 14 November 2017). 450 All the following lines from the poem are my translation. 451 Darwish, “Sirḥan yashrab al-qahwa fī al-kafiteriya”, pp. 177, 186. 452 F. A. Gerges, ‘The Transformation of Arab Politics: Disentangling Myth from Reality’, in The 1967 Arab- Israeli war Origins and Consequences, pp. 297-299.

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Darwish also uses narrative and dramatic structures by applying the narrative component in controversial context and articulates anti-colonial voices by showing the conflict among

Israeli settlers, Palestinian resistance and the narrator, as conveyed by his characters. He portrays scenes of the protagonist (Sirhan) in a tense Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the homeland. He depicts the polarised Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the shock of the 1967

Naksa. Darwish describes a sudden event between the enemies, who come to fight for land ownership, but this fighting is considered unequal, because it occurs between powerful, fuelled, and prepared occupiers and weak, unprepared, indigenous people who are trying to liberate their motherland and resist the occupation. This situation led to the defeat and then to the displacement of Palestinians who were then scattered across different regions on the globe.453 The poet displays some characteristics of the dramatic structure by using different voices (including Palestinians, Israeli settlers, Sirhan and the narrator) and the narrative technique in this poem. Darwish explains this conflict, as he writes:

‘Why did you eat vegetables smuggled from the field of Jericho? Why did you drink olive oil stolen from Christ’s wounds? And Sirhan is accused of being a strange exception from the norm’.454

Darwish uses this text to explore the impact of displacement and diaspora on Palestinian identity. He mentions the nihilistic traits of his character (Sirhan) as an example of a

Palestinian person having undergone endless exile. His experience of the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territorial belonging that distinguishes his early phase is the notion of articulating the Palestinian people issues in light of his strong commitment of his people and expressing their voices particularly the subaltern class (peasants) rather than his own. These

Palestinian characters are often depicted as being fatherless, motherless, landless, captive strangers who have suffered injustices. Later, the character protests against those Israeli

453 Ali. Bunyat al-qaṣīda fī shi‛r Maḥmūd Darwīsh, pp. 61-63. 454 This section translated by Khalid Mattawa, in Mahmoud Darwish: The Poet’s Art and His Nation, p. 73.

122 settlers who loot and ‘feed on the nurturance of his homeland, from which he has been orphaned’ and exiled.455

In the same poem, the poet draws upon his grief and suffering following the loss of his homeland. He mentions his ‘old-present dream’ to return to the nation and never be exiled when he writes:

‘And two windows on the sea, O my nation, and they drag away the expatriations.. And I return an old-new dream. Other streets disappeared from his city (the songs and his solitude informed him on the night of Eid, that he has a room in a place)’.456

Here, the poet puts more emphasis on the notion of the loss of homeland by using the technique of internal monologue to echo the dream of returning to the nation. Moreover, this poem expresses a strong connection to the motherland, symbolised by coffee, as Darwish commonly uses the word ‘coffee’ in his work. He repeats it in this text in order to recall memories of the homeland that will never be forgotten. In short, Darwish’s view of the smell of coffee in this poem is used as a tool to recollect his past and his identity. He writes:

‘The smell of coffee is geography. And the smell of coffee beans is a hand. And the smell of coffee is a sound calling.. And takes.. The smell of coffee is a sound and a minaret that will one day return’. 457

The reference to the phrase ‘smell of coffee’ can be interpreted in a number of ways. The literal meaning is when Darwish starts his day by drinking coffee in the morning as per his usual routine. He makes the coffee with his hands in a silent and peaceful environment; it draws him away from the conflict of life. Secondly, the key role of the coffee’s smell is enhancing hope and strength; it can reduce the impact of the depressing events surrounding him. The third meaning links the smell of coffee and the remembrance of his homeland; the

455 Mattawa, Mahmoud Darwish: The Poet’s Art and His Nation, p. 74. 456 This section also translated by Khalid Mattawa, in Mahmoud Darwish: The Poet’s Art and His Nation, p. 74. 457 It is my translation.

123 peaceful past and the ruined present are compared.458 Thus, the coffee he drinks in the cafeteria in exile is dissimilar to the coffee he had drunk in his homeland in light of its feature of the coffee that was brewed in Palestinian (local) fields.

Furthermore, the theme of sorrow and anguish appear in Darwish’s work because of the displacement and loss of homeland, as for example, in al-nuzūl min al-karmal.459 In this poem, Darwish recalls the journey of the displaced Palestinian refugees that caused the poet pain, suddenness and feelings of nostalgia for the loss of homeland. He writes:

تركﺖ ﻭﺭائﻲ مالمحها، ﻭاسمه كاﻥ يمشﻲ I left behind me her features, and his أمامﻲ name used to walk in front of me يسمﻲ مالمحها ﻭانفجاﺭﻱ. تركﺖ سرير .Naming her features and my explosion الﻮالﺩﻩ I left the birthing bed تركﺖ ضريحاً معداً ألﻱ كالﻡ..I left a grave prepared for any words.460 461

Darwish repeatedly uses the phrase ‘I left my beloved’ in this poem. It appears in the text ten times, recalling the sadness of departing from the birthland through a national song. The poet expresses his own experiences of displacement and diaspora, and the experiences of the

Palestinians, relaying nostalgic feelings of the homeland. Darwish uses this text to make a connection to the homeland by recalling Palestinian memories and identity, which are never forgotten, despite the diasporic condition and the colonialists’ denial of the Palestinian nation and their right of return. Darwish mentions in the following section:

‘A soldier shakes the fingers of my hand so a memory falls; a pine tree, rotten fruit, an accusation, and Questions. He searches my palm a second time, so he impounds Haifa who smuggled his seeds’.462

458 K. El-Tayeby, ‘Al-qahwa wa ab‛ādhā al-wujūdiyya fī shi‛r Maḥmūd Darwīsh’, ṣaḥifat al-quds al-‛arabī, 11 August 2016, Available from: file://nask.man.ac.uk/home$/, (accessed 15 November 2017). 459 “Descending of Mount Carmel”. M. Darwish, “Al-nuzūl min al-karmal”, in Dīwān Maḥmūd Darwīsh (2), pp. 215-230. 460 All the following lines from the poem are my translation. 461 Darwish, “Al-nuzūl min al-karmal”, in Dīwān Maḥmūd Darwīsh (2), pp. 217-218, 220, 227. 462 Darwish, pp. 217-218.

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The word ‘pine’ has symbolic significance. Palestinian houses and lands were demolished and were replaced with pine trees by the Israeli occupiers during the attempts to ethnically cleanse the Arabs and disperse the Palestinians to different parts of the world. The aim of this was to eliminate Palestinian identity after the 1948 Nakba and the 1967 Naksa. However, the

Palestinians display resistance to maintain their national identity and consciousness.463

Darwish uses the symbol of ‘head/Mount Carmel’ to refer to the Palestinian identity and their continual relationship with their homeland. As a rule, the perspective of national identity which is articulated by Palestinians is a passionate topic to the motherland, leading to the maintenance of the Palestinian identity which succeeds to be inherited between generations.

As Darwish writes:

‘I love the countries, which I will love. I love all women, whom I love. But a branch from cypress in inflamed Carmel is more preferable than all women’s waist and all countries’.464

According to Ball, Darwish, in this poem and in his earlier well-known poem Biṭāqat hawiyya,465 shows the bond between Palestinians and their homeland, affirming the national identity and relationship to their own territories, something which is inscribed in the minds of the Palestinians.466

In the same poem, Darwish explores one of the main effects of the diaspora: alienation. He writes:

‘And when I stood by the Nile one day, and on the shore of the Tigris one day, all those who saw my amazement were questioning. Who is the foreign tourist?!’467

463 H. Shehadeh, ‘Al-ṣanawbar wa al-taʼṭhīr al-‛irkī’, ṣawt a-‛urūba, 18 January 2015, Available online from: https://arabvoice.com/53188/, (accessed 5 December 2017). 464 Darwish, p. 229. 465 “Identity Card”. Darwish, “Biṭāqat hawiyya”, in Dīwān Maḥmūd Darwīsh al-mujallad al-awwal, pp. 121- 127. 466 Ball, Palestinian Literature and Film in Postcolonial Feminist Perspective, pp. 29-30. 467 Darwish, p. 227.

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In fact, wherever Palestinians live as a diaspora, there is a sense of being strangers in their host countries. There are, however, differing levels of disconnection. Some of them, especially the newer generations who were born in exile, are able to adjust their lives to fit within the new places. For others, adapting to those places is more difficult because of the loss of their mother nation, their belongings, and the national environment.

The poem Aḥmad al-za‛tar468 is considered to be an epic based on the Beirut period (1971-

1982). Fawwaz Traboulsi noted the new phase of poetic development through the Beirut period when Darwish began to use the epic style in his work.469 In this poem, Darwish depicts heroic stories of Palestinian Fedayeen (freedom fighters). The poet also recalls the story of his people in exile and their diasporic existence. The themes of resistance and the search for identity, for those Palestinians who were dispossessed since the displacement, also heavily feature. Darwish recites the story of his hero (Ahmad) as a Palestinian refugee who was born and grew up along with the za‛tar (thyme). He uses this to celebrate the Fedayeen’s struggle. Darwish writes:

كاﻥ اغتراب البحر بﻴن ﺭصاصتﻴن The estrangement of the sea was between two bullets مخﻴماً ينمﻮ. ، ﻭينجﺐ ﺯعت ًر ﻭمقاتلﻴن A camp which grows. And gives birth to thyme and fighters. ﻭساعداً يشتد فﻲ النسﻴاﻥ.And a forearm which becomes tense in 471 forgetfulness.470

468 This poem is related to Palestinian people who live in the Palestinian refugee camp called Tall al-za‛tar (Hill of Thyme). It is located in Lebanon, as Palestinians were sieged for seven months in 1976, representing a resistance despite the siege and lack of food. Thereafter, 3,000 Palestinians were killed by Lebanese forces (Maronite Paganist) associated with Syrian forces. For more information, see: H. L. Schulz and J. Hammer, The Palestinian Diaspora: Formation of Identities and Politics of Homeland, London: Routledge Taylor and Francis Group, 2003, pp. 54-57. 469 Mahmoud Darwish, qanāt al-jazīra, [online video], 2009, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llRSy9pKr8M, (accessed 11 December 2017). I examined in the previous chapters (1 and 2) the features of the development of Darwish’s work through the Beirut period to use new themes, styles and structures which includes his use of the dramatic structure, epic poems, the celebration of fedayeen fighters struggle, the experience of exile and loss of homeland and the development of poetic and cultural aspects. 470 It is my translation. 471 M. Darwish, “Aḥmad al-za‛tar”, in Dīwān Maḥmūd Darwīsh al-mujallad al-thānī, p. 470.

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Darwish aims to use Ahmad, a young boy, as a symbol of Palestinians who live in tragic conditions in exile. He writes:

‘In everything Ahmad used to meet an opposition. For twenty years he would ask. For twenty years he would leave. For twenty years his mother did not give birth except for minutes in a bowl of bananas and she retreated. He needs an identity so he is struck by a volcano’.472

Here, Darwish explains the painful hardship suffered by the Palestinian diaspora, including their alienation, instability, and the loss of their identity and homeland. The Palestinian immigrants in host countries, both near and far, feel isolated, and they desire to live in peaceful and collaborative circumstances with their hosts. Darwish claims:

‘O Arab Ahmad I have not cleaned my blood from the bread of my enemies. But every time my steps go on the paths the paths flee, the close and the far ones. Every time I befriend a capital city, it throws the bag at me’.473

This poem also raises the question of the life-death conflict for the poet, and the present- absent Palestinian existence, as Darwish depicts Ahmed’s body as being resurrected after being martyred. This metaphorically symbolises remaining alive, with the Arab world standing in resistance. He writes:

‘I am Ahmad the Arab—let the siege come. My body is the walls―let the siege come. I am the edge of fire―let the siege come. And I now besiege you with my besiegement. I now besiege you and my chest is the door to all the world’s people―let the siege come’.474

In the above stanza, there is a transformation of the character who was being sieged; eventually he is shown to be capable of besieging his enemies and protecting himself, metaphorically protecting the walls; he says: ‘And I now besiege you with my

472 It is my translation. 473 This section translated by Khalid Mattawa, in Mahmoud Darwish: The Poet’s Art and His Nation, p. 84. 474 Ibid.

127 besiegement’.475 In Darwish’s poem Sirḥan yashrabu al-qahwa fī al-kafiteriya, he articulates the conflict between the strong and the weak through the fighting between rival adversaries.

In addition, this poem shows the notion of the self-sacrifice embodied in the protagonist

(Ahmed) in terms of the image of Palestinian Fedayeen. In fact, Darwish’s work in general serves the Palestinian resistance in terms of its social and political commitment.

In The Location of Culture, the postcolonial theorist Homi K. Bhabha studied the sense of national identification inside diasporic communities. He analyses the theme of ‘cultural difference’ in diasporic community vis-à-vis Western culture, also known as master and margin discourses. According to him, there is somewhat of a hybrid structure of metaphoric writings by the authors who have moved to Western countries to live in the diaspora. Bhabha argues that the nation is regarded in literary works as the ‘measure of the liminality of cultural modernity’. He emphasises the national and the newly configured collective identities which bring together the diasporic people.476 This creation of a new cultural identity in exile also implies the use of language in host culture. Bhabha and Said noted that the language identifications in the diaspora are distinguished by consisting of the ‘doubleness in writing’ that can have multiple interpretations of the modern nation. This is due to cultural constructions and society being dispersed in terms of new spatial aspects connecting with other nations, leading to the writings of exile. Such writings consist of a rich diversity of cultures (the culture of diasporic people crossing other nations). 477

The cultural identity of diasporic subjects gives rise to a motif of postcolonial discourse, namely one that expresses new subjects and issues that are not detected to be on the same horizontal level as the identity of the central-original culture. Rather it develops across

475 Ibid. 476 H. K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture, New York: Routledge Classics, 2004, pp. 199-202. 477 Ibid., pp. 201-202.

128 various cultures, which are a result of the creation of a new cultural identity in exile that situates the diasporic community between its original identity and that of the host culture.

Concerning the theme of nation and cultural difference, two theorists, Bhabha and Bakhtin, have similar views around these concepts as expressed in Bakhtin’s theory of dialogism478 and Bhabha’s study of the location of culture in modern nation.479 It is argued that Bhabha was influenced by Bakhtin’s views on the nation and cultural difference as he explained the different sites between self and other in dialogue in terms of dialoguers presenting one event from different perceptions, views and consciousness.480 This is particularly the case for the creation of national views in narrations (that means new configuration of cultural identity/different identities of diasporic people), particularly the phenomenon of time-place relationship in literary productions. They describe historical time (events) in certain spaces, or as Bakhtin terms it - the ‘chronotope’481 which refers to the fundamental relationship between time and space in literary works482 occurring simultaneously in dialogue, and talking about one event from different positions and views.483 For example, Bakhtin examined the work of German author, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Italian Journey. The work depicts his diary of traveling to some cities in Italy from 1786 to1788, including the narration of the past

(historical time) of the localities of Italy as Bakhtin’s consideration of the Italian Journey to overwhelm the form of realism rather than romanticism.484 Thus, by analysing the narratives of nation, we can understand national identity on different levels that explore the social and multi-ideological identifications.

478 Holquist, Dialogism Bakhtin and his world, pp. 14- 66. 479 Bhabha, The Location of Culture, pp. 199-244. 480 M. Holquist, Dialogism Bakhtin and his world, p. 21. 481 Ibid., p. 109. 482 Ibid. 483 Holquist, Dialogism Bakhtin and his world, p. 21. 484 Bhabha, The Location of Culture, pp. 204-207.

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Bhabha addresses the significance of studying the concept of nation through the reading of narrations, which includes the recognition of the national language, rhetoric, and the ambivalent ideologies of nation that transforms from the past to the present and in light of the creation of new cultural identity in diasporic community.485 This refers to the creation of the

‘international perspective’ emerging in the consciousness of nations that have traces from other nations486 as well as the key of marginal and diasporic nations in the postcolonial discourse. Bhabha attempts to explore the modern nation in light of the site (locality) of culture in hybridity alongside the diversity of culture and the significance of marginal people in exile within the host culture. All of these marginal cultures engage with master cultures to build modernity; he calls the ‘Janus-faced to west and east’ diminution of the cultural space.487

Bhabha explains the transformation of national culture as a result of displacement and relocation to a new place and exist under a dominant (western culture) and different culture in terms of race, class, politics, location etc.488 He explains that this condition may lead to create either a sense of conflict between these cultures or to cultural affirmation which may occur between a marginal culture and a master culture.489

Following the above discussion on the definition of cultural difference, Bhabha’s concept of cultural difference in diasporic nations/people is linked to Darwish’s post-Naksa work. His work after the Beirut period and the 1982 Siege of Beirut moved to a new phase emphasising the new transformation to configure Palestinian national identity as hybrid and different in comparison to other cultures.

485 H. K. Bhabha. ‘Introduction: Narrating the Nation’, in H. K. Bhabha (ed.), Nation and Narration, London: Routledge Taylor Francis Group, 1990, pp. 3-5. 486 Ibid. 487 Ibid., pp. 6-7. 488 H. K. Bhabha. ‘Frontlines/Borderposts’, in A. Bammer (ed.), Displacements: Cultural Identities in Question, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994, pp. 269- 272. 489 Ibid.

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In his poem qaṣīdat B ayrūt,490 Darwish presents the idea of cultural ambivalence, or as

Bhabha refers to it, ‘cultural difference’, of the nation that arose because of exile and diaspora.491 The poet admits his negative views towards the city which contradict the common positive views of Beirut as a modern city where many people desire to live, and against old Arab poets’ impressions who praise the city and wish to live in it. He writes:

بﻴرﻭت من تعﺐ ﻭمن ﺫهﺐ، ﻭأندلس ﻭشاﻡ. Beirut is built of gold and fatigue of Andalusia and Damascus فضة، َﺯبَد ، ﻭصايا األﺭﺽ فﻲ ﺭيش Silver, seafoam, bequests of earth in the الحماﻡ. plumage of pigeons ﻭفاﺓ سنبلة. تشرﺩ نجمة بﻴنﻲ ﻭبﻴن Death of a cornstalk,492 like the vagrant حبﻴبتﻲ.star which moves between my beloved and 494 me.493

Beirut city is commonly described by many Arab poets as being a beautiful metropolis distinguished by its charm and cultural freedom. It is often referred to as ‘mistress’, for example, in Nizar Qabbani’s poem yā sitt al-dunyā yā Bayrūt,495 which was published in

1978 during the Lebanese Civil War (1975-1990). Qabbani laments over his beloved (Beirut) when he denounces how the lovely city turned into a place of war and fighting; he wants

Beirut to return to its blooming and loving past. He writes:

يا حقل اللؤلؤ.. O field of pearls يا مﻴناء العشق.. O port of love ﻭيا ﻁﻮﻭﺱ الماء.. O peacock of water ق ُﻮمﻲ من أجل الحﺐ، ﻭمن أجل الشعراء Rise for the sake of love, and for the sake of poetry ق ُﻮمﻲ من أجل الخبز ﻭمن أجل الفقراء.Rise for the sake of bread and 497 for the sake of the poor.496

490 “Beirut’s Poem”. 491 Bhabha, The Location of Culture, pp. 199-202. 492 This stanza translated into English by Yair Huri, in ‘Seeking Glory in the Dunghills: Representations of the City in the Writing of Modern Arab Poets, The South Carolina Modern Language Review, vol. 4, no.1, 2005, p. 66. Available from: http://images.acswebnetworks.com/2017/78/CITY.pdf, (accessed 12 December 2017). 493 It is my translation. 494 Darwish, “Qaṣīdat Beirut”, in Dīwān Maḥmūd Darwīsh al-mujallad al-thānī, p. 504. 495 “O Lady of the World, O Beirut”. 496 It is my translation. 497 N. Qabbani, “Yā sit al-dunyā yā Bayrūt”, in Al-a‛mal al-siyyasiyya al-kāmila: al-juz’ al-thālith, 2ed edn, vol. 3, Beirut: Manshūrāt Nizār Qabbani, 1998, pp. 581-582.

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Darwish’s experience, however, contradicts the stereotypical images of the city. He recalls his memory of Beirut during his exile and portrays the impact of the 1982 Siege of Beirut through his poetic experience. The warfare, conflict, and siege caused him grief and depression despite his passion and love for the place. Yair Huri argues that Darwish’s view of a city with ‘unique ambivalence’ sheds light on the poet’s attitude towards it. He frames it in a novel manner while exploring the notions of gloominess and sorrow.

In the well-known poem maṭār Athinā,498 (which is written in the form of a prose poem),

Darwish depicts the voyage of his nation’s displacement and their migration from their place of origin to wherever they could stay. Describing the border crossing and airport customs, where the Palestinian people waited and were questioned, he says:

Athens airport disperses us to other airports. “Where can I fight?”, asks the fighter. “Where can I deliver your child?” a pregnant woman shouts back. “Where can I invest my money?” Asks the banker. “This is none of my business”, the intellectual says. “Where did you come from?” Asks the customs official. And we answer: “From the sea!” “Where are you going?” “To the sea”, we answer. “What is your address?” A woman of our group says: “My village is my bundle on my back”. We have waited in the Athens airport for years. A young man marries a girl but they have no place for their wedding night. He asks: “where can I make love to her?” We laugh and say: This is not the right time for that question. The analyst says: “In order to live, they die by mistake”. The literary man says: “Our camp will certainly fall”. What do they want from us? Athens airport welcomes its visitors without end. Yet, like the benches in the terminal, we remain, impatiently waiting for the sea. O Athens airport, how many more years will this waiting take?499

Here, Darwish tells us of the process of Palestinian displacement and their scattering to various parts of the globe. He says: “Athens airport disperses us to other airports”.500 This prose work is distinguished by using a dramatic structure to display dialogue, multiple voices and scenes. The poet tells his own story and those of others, including a pregnant woman, fighter, banker, customs employee, literary writer, analyst, and intellectual. The narrator

498 “Athens Airport”. 499 This poem translated by Khalid Mattawa, in Mahmoud Darwish: The Poet’s Art and His Nation, p. 105. 500 Ibid.

132 moves rapidly from one scene to other scenes as the circumstances do not allow him to give additional details. The poetic structure seems to be distinguished by conciseness and concentration, unlike other genres, such us fiction and play. However, this poem is like a short play representing the theatre of the Palestinian dilemma, including various scenes and characters in terms of conveying the effects of suffering caused by displacement on

Palestinians, leading to homelessness, joblessness, unsettledness, dispersion and struggle.

Additionally, the metaphor of ‘sea’ accentuates the sense of displacement and endless

‘waiting’. They (Palestinians) come from the sea and are going back to the sea, thus underscoring the journey of migration through the sea.

The concept of non-places’ theory, introduced by Marc Augé in his book Non-places:

Introduction to An Anthropology of Supermodernity,501 can be applied to the maṭār Athinā poem where Darwish identified this airport as a non-place. Augé defined the term ‘non- places’ to mean the various forms of spaces including meeting points and transit camps where people usually stay temporarily and from which they transit to other places such as motorways, airports, trains, hotels, shops and refugee camps.502 He also explores the differences between social ’anthropological’ places and non-places. One of the main differences is that the anthropological places are closely related to identity, while the non- places are never connected to identity. Furthermore, these non-places are created by supermodernity, distinguished by connecting with social places and do not affect the constitution of organic society. 503 The required document for the traveller in a non-place is the individual identity such as an identity card, a passport and a visa rather than the social identity.504 Thus, these travellers of maṭār Athinā’s poem represent their individual identities

501 M. Augé, Non-places: Introduction to An Anthropology of Supermodernity, trans. J. Howe, London: Verso, 1995. 502 Ibid., pp. 34, 73. 503 Ibid., pp. 77-78, 111-112. 504 Ibid., p. 102.

133 and the necessary documents to show at the border control and customs are the official identity documents (including passport and visa) and the air ticket.

In this poem, Darwish represents various scenes of the dire circumstances of the transiting

Palestinian passengers at the points of border control and customs. While these events occur in a non-place (airport), the accelerated dialogue that occurs between those unknown travellers, were transmitted in the airport, and confirms their self-awareness.

Therefore, the supermodernity505 of the maṭār Athinā’s poem is the separation between the past (the locality and exotic world which represent the image of Palestinian nation) and the present words of the airport spaces, which cannot be connected to identity. The presentation of the ‘past’ word (bundle) in the text, which symbolises the image of the origins of the nation, as the word ‘bundle’ symbolises the past roots of Palestinian people as peasants. In contrast, the identity of Palestinians does not concern itself with the contextualisation of a non-place (airport) and the spaces and new words of the airport such as terminal, seats, the customs official and the information screens do not integrate with Palestinian social identity.

Although the non-place in not connected to identity, it is developed to configure the feature of supermodernity by creating the sense of ‘individual consciousness’ that emerges in new literary texts according to Augé caused by the ‘proliferation of non-places.506 In this prose poem, the individual consciousness appears because of the isolation of characters (travellers) who are being separated from their social place.

In fact, the reading of this poem as non-place is not in contradiction with the maintenance of

Palestinian identity, which is enhanced in exile. In this poem it is illustrated with the

505 Augé argued that modernity’s thought characterised by the integration between past and present words in one scenes; whereas in supermodernity’s thought the old word and history expressions are made in ‘specific spectacle in separate to other new spectacles and never be combined with the historical and social aspects in order to create a simultaneously space between the spectacle and the spectator. For further information see: Augé, Non-places: Introduction to An Anthropology of Supermodernity, pp. 92-111. 506 Ibid., p. 93.

134 reference to the characteristic feature of the ‘bundle’ (now backpack). It is in these bundles that Palestinians transported their memorable items, taken from the homeland to the host countries including their house keys, landmark pictures, and other Palestinian visual arts that are essential in order to keep sensory memory of their national identity in these host countries.

Putting the maṭār Athinā poem in its historical context and exploring the time-space relationship to elucidate the national view and the development of cultural identity post-

Naksa, Mattawa argues that this poem refers to the conditions of the Palestinian community who lived in refugee camps in Lebanon when the PLO was expelled and was forced to leave

Beirut in 1982.

The site of the poem is anywhere, thus, Beirut, where they left their families and community.

However, this poem could also be referring to the previous mass displacement of the

Palestinian people from their birthland following the 1948 Nakba and the 1967 Naksa, which would situate the events in Palestine, when many Palestinian people were displaced and scattered to different countries across the world. As the characters (speakers of maṭār

Athinā’s story/narrative of Palestinian travellers) who represent different specialist skills and voices like international passengers in the airport who come from various communities/regions around the world. Ironically, the narrator ends his narrative by representing the long waiting of his people in the Athens airport like the benches in the airport terminals. Like the benches remain, so too do the Palestinians remain and do not return home, which was because of their endless exile.

Hall’s concept of cultural identity and Bhabha’s concept of cultural difference can also apply to maṭār Athinā poem. This prose poem explains the hybridity of a Palestinian’s cultural identity in crossing other cultures and nations in terms of emphasising the sense of normality

135 and modernity of Palestinian culture, which led to configure the various identifications of

Palestinian nation in exile where the poem’s characters own multiple professional skills such as investor, intellectual, analyst and literary writer, despite of the fact it confirms the national identity with regard to maintaining the connection to the land (Palestine) and Palestinian peasant identification. As Hall explained the difference of cultural identity in diasporic community that imagined as ‘sliding scale’ identities, which occurred in different points between the national identity and host cultural identities in exile.507 Thus, addressing the form of Palestinian identity and difference in diaspora, which is interpreted in this text in liminal spaces, such as the airport, which Bhabha terms ‘binary structuring’ of national culture508 that explores the Palestinian resistance to the identity of origin in light of national identity and unity, and cultural development of hybrid cultural identity in host countries.

Notably, the concept of cosmopolitan society appears in this text. As Darwish’s characters in the maṭār Athinā show his nation to contain people with many specialist qualifications, like usual international travellers who come from other nations and gather in airports. Palestinian travellers regarded as normal cosmopolitan travellers showing their individual voices in exile and displacement. As these travellers are viewed to be one of the main indicators, who construct the conception of cosmopolitan society accorded to Ulrich Beck that cosmopolitan comes from diasporic experiences which lead to vast array of ‘transnational marriages, births of transnational children, new emerging ‘hybrid’ cultures, literatures and languages.509 Beck also defines the concept of ‘cosmopolitan’ as a term that refers to the transformation of nation-state societies to global world societies that are caused by the second age of modernity in terms of mobility and migrations, and leads to the rise of individual voices.510 Gurminder

507 Hall, Cultural Identity and Diaspora, p. 228. 508 Bhabha, The Location of Culture, pp. 200-201. 509 U. Beck, ‘The Cosmopolitan Perspective: Society and the Second Age of Modernity’, British Journal of Sociology, vol. 51, no. 1, 2000, p. 97. 510 Ibid., pp. 81, 83.

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K. Bhambra argues that Beck’s definition of ‘cosmopolitan’ is a ‘Eurocentric definition’, which is linked to globalisation and is synonymously considered the same as modernisation and Westernisation. However, the characteristic of the Beck’s definition is his emphasis of various modernities (European and non-European) and multiculturalism, which means

‘cosmopolitan’ consists of these ‘globalisation elites’ and ‘poor migrations’ (ethnic minorities), who are key to the configuration of cosmopolitism.511 In fact, Beck’s thought of cosmopolitan which seems to be related to Bhabha’s idea of ‘international perspective’ of marginal and diasporic societies, who configure the hybrid culture with host cultures.512 For

Darwish the use of the narrative and dramatic structures in these techniques of dialogue and different voices and thoughts to display international dimension with respect to the consciousness of these travellers in maṭār Athinā as well as it represents the humanist expression of Palestinian struggle in diaspora.

3.5 Conclusion

This chapter has explained fundamental postcolonial concepts, including displacement, exile, and diaspora which closely link Palestinian identity and the diasporic experience following the Israeli occupation. This diasporic experience led to the Palestinian people to become fragmented and scattered across various parts of the world.

The experience of exile and diaspora greatly affected Darwish’s own work, with him bringing new themes of anguish and alienation into his poetry; he, himself, was displaced twice. Darwish tells the stories of his displaced people, particularly in the second phase of his poetry (1971-1986). Palestinian exiles living in diasporic situations became the primary

511 G. K. Bhambra, ‘Cosmopolitanism and Postcolonial Critique’, in M. Rovisco and M. Nowicka (eds), The Ashgate Companion to Cosmopolitanism, Ashgate: Farnham, 2011, pp. 1-4, 8-9. 512 Bhabha. ‘Introduction: Narrating the Nation’, pp. 3-5.

137 theme of his work. The poetic innovation that appeared in Darwish’s work during his time in exile (post-1970) included new structures and styles, such as the narrative and dramatic structures in poetry which is a direct effect of historical events, including the 1948 Nakba, the

1967 Naksa, the 1982 Siege of Beirut, and the 1982 Sabra and Shatila Massacre.

In addition, this chapter has explored the use of dramatic structure in Darwish post-Naksa work which is characterised by displaying narrative and dramatic elements such as dialogues, monologues, narrations, scenes and polyphony (various voices). In his poem Sirḥan yashrab al-qahwa fī al-kafiteriya, Darwish uses the dramatic structure by displaying dialogue between his characters (Israelis and Palestinians) in order to represent the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the impact of the 1967 Naksa that led to Palestinian displacement and diaspora and reflected on Palestinian national identity.

Moreover, Bhabha’s concept of cultural difference/ambivalence has been applied in an effort to explain Darwish’s views towards the city in his work in light of the effects of his diasporic experience. For instance, in his poem qaṣīdat Bayrūt, he conveys contradicting images and ambivalent views of the city (Beirut) that are opposite to the common views about Beirut city as a beautiful city and a hub of cultural freedom. This negative view of the city is due to the war and the 1982 Siege of Beirut, when he evoked his grieved memory, although Beirut still remains beloved and a precious place for him.

Additionally, this chapter has considered the impact of the 1982 Siege of Beirut on Darwish’s work that articulates of new configuration of cultural identity in diaspora. This idea of cultural identity of Palestinian diaspora appears in his prose poem maṭār Athinā, where he explains the journey/story of Palestinian displacement and diaspora which took place in the airport from where his people were dispersed to different parts of the world. The poet uses the dramatic structure for showing various voices, scenes and the dialogue between

138 characters to configure Palestinian cultural identity in diaspora. It has been argued that this poem is similar to short play which depicts the Palestinian complex situation.

In addition, this prose poem maṭār Athinā explains Palestinian cultural development of hybrid cultural identity in host countries in crossing other cultures and nations because

Palestinian diasporic experiences led to configure the various identifications of Palestinian nation in exile in which the poem’s characters represent different voices and multiple professional skills.

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Chapter Four: The Post-Naksa Phase and the Conflict between Individual and

Collective Memories in the Work of Darwish

4.1 Introduction

This chapter examines the transformation of memory in Darwish’s post-Naksa work and his struggle to preserve Palestinian collective memory and shifts in his own memory and identity during his life in the diaspora. The work he produced between 1967 and 1987 was affected by three significant historical events: the 1967 Naksa, the 1982 Siege of Beirut, and the First

Intifada in 1987, and led to the retelling of his personal memory and collective memories in his work, as a means to reconstruct his self-identity. Therefore, this chapter will apply Pierre

Nora’s theory to the conception of old and new memories and the configuration of ‘sites of memory’ in relation to Darwish’s texts as a memorial moment and a site of memory. This theory resonates with my study of the anti-colonial discourse and the individual Palestinian voices that speak of the battle of memory, to either abolish or restore the national memory.

Darwish’s own memory and the Palestinian collective memory combine to act as a counter- discourse to the Israeli collective memory and colonialism. The works of Edward Said and

Mourid Barghouti will be reviewed in this chapter and linked to the impact of the 1967 Naksa on their memory and identity.

Furthermore, this chapter will apply Jan Assmann’s theory of collective memory that he defines based on cultural representation rather than the social aspects that explain the objectivity and stability of the community’s cultural/collective memory. It will also link the concept of cultural memory to examine its transformation in Darwish’s post-Naksa work, and how he configures the new self-image of cultural/collective memory based on individual

140 memories and a new perspective and awareness in which the idea of collective memory is commemorated through cultural artefacts and practices.

In addition, this chapter will explore how his work uses the dramatic structure, dialogue, various voices and ideologies in the remembrance of his memories and Palestinian collective memories post-Naksa. The purpose of his literary experiences which occur post-Naksa is to represent the transformation of his personal and national memories and his concern to configure self-identity and Palestinian identity as conflictive and dialogic in crossing other cultures and identifications.

4.2 From History to Memory: The Conceptions of Old Memory and New Memory

The relationship between history and memory is generally seen as one in which social identity was constructed historically in terms of the unity of the nation. Here, this chapter will illustrate the concept of the old memory as it identifies as collective identity in relation to the concept of new memory.

In his essay ‘The Era of Commemoration’,513 Pierre Nora explains his theory of the concepts of old memory and new memory as they are related to identify national memory and the development of individuals’ consciousness. His studies focus on the case of the French nation and how collective memory has been transferred in the present to become commercial and patrimonial (heritage) for the French people. Namely, he asks to what extent individuals, groups, parties, and other organisations speak of historical (collective) memory within today’s memory and thereby reformulate the national memory. He also makes a clear link between the two terms ‘history’ and ‘memory’ in relation to historical events, the collective

513 P. Nora, ‘The Era of Commemoration’, in L. D. Kritzman, tran. A. Goldhammer, The Construction of the French Past: Realms of Memory, vol. III, New York: Columbia University Press, 1998, pp. 609-637.

141 acts of memorialising that transform with the national memory (national history) either becoming stronger or weaker. Namely, the historical event as a symbol to create the collective nation and become memorialised, and then may decline and cause conflict among a nation/people who have different attitudes towards the concept of the historical nation leading to a battle of memories.514

Nora’s concept of ‘sites of memory’ refers to physical and non-physical sites which have become symbolic instruments and contain all types of national official symbols such as monuments, museums, buildings, collective memory, prominent figures of the nation and historical events which are classified into two categories (imposed and constructed symbols).

The first concept of these sites is to be understood as ‘imposed symbols’ (official state symbols) because they are purely connected to the object by a symbolic and memorial purpose. The second meaning to these sites of memory is ‘constructed symbols’ which are the contemporary and essential symbols of the nation.515 Nora explains the difference between these imposed and constructed symbols. The imposed symbols mean the group of objects, whereas the constructed symbols refer to the contemporary (modern) transformation of national history and memory.516

He also argues that the recalling of the past memory of the nation in the present is brought about by changing the past events to different dates and indications, as the past would continue as part of today’s memory and people can make new methods of commemoration.

Nora illustrates the relationship between old memory and the new memory as follows:517

History proposes but the present disposes, and what happens often differs from what was intended. This has had a particular effect on the recent series of major national commemorations: the most pointless

514 Ibid., p. 609, 616. 515 P. Nora, ‘Introduction to Realm of Memory’, Volume III’, in The Construction of the French Past: Realms of Memory, pp. x, xii. 516 Ibid. 517 Ibid., p. 618.

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commemorations were the most successful; the ones that were emptiest from the standpoint of politics and history were the fullest from the standpoint of memory.518

In this passage, Nora suggests that there is a mismatch between ‘official’ histories as represented in these commemorations, and the performative power of collective memory exercised by those who attend these commemorations. Nora also suggests that the key individual voices who celebrate a past achievement (historical event) for commemoration create a kind of distancing and proximity relationship to the historical memory.

Commemorators put the historical event at a distance and neglect the continual process of the past memory to the present memory. The present memory, therefore, creates a successful commemoration of national memory when these individuals represent their views in the contemporary context and become free from political and historical views.519

Indeed, a sense of discontinuity occurs between old memory and new memory, particularly with unpleasant and painful memories where a nation/people have lost their old memory (the collective memory), for example, the peasant culture of the French nation disappeared, and shifted to a patrimonial nation. The traditional memory only exists now through history, imagination, literary works and films.520 Therefore, according to Nora, the relationship between the old memory and the new memory has shifted and has become diverse as the collective ‘old’ memory is held open to change by the acts of commemoration in the present, it is ‘open, flexible, alive, and continually being reworked’.521

In addition, these changes in individual memories are associated with the nature of conflict between nations and groups of people.522 Nora’s idea of the individual memories forming the

518 Ibid. 519 Ibid., pp. 620-621. 520 Ibid., pp. 621-623. 521 J. McCormack, ‘Social Memories in (Post) colonial France: Remembering the Franco-Algerian War’, Journal of Social History, vol. 44, no. 4, pp. 1129-1130. 522 Nora, The Construction of the French Past, p. 636.

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‘new memory’ and becoming shared in public, is reflected in Darwish’s published work. This view is related to the case of colonised people whose memory is in conflict with that of the coloniser’s. In this case the Palestinian national memory is in conflict with Israeli memory, and by recovering Palestinian private memories to become shared and therefore public is a means to confront Israeli colonialism which attempts to erase Palestinian memory. For example, the Palestinian Museum presents various visual arts, artefacts and documents which evoke Palestinian heritage and cultural memory. The museum also devotes the 1948 Nakba commercial event in terms of displacing the Nakba’s visual arts and documents.523

In his article ‘Collective Memory and Cultural Identity’,524 Jan Assmann examined the concept of collective memory as a cultural form rather than a social framework. From two theorists, Maurice Halbwachs and Aby Warburg, he developed a definition of ‘collective memory’. Assmann explains that collective memory should be considered as cultural representation of a social framework which sheds light on its relationship to ‘behaviour and experience in the interactive framework of a society and one that obtains through generations in repeated societal practice and initiation’.525 Exploring two definitions of collective/cultural memory where the first definition of cultural memory is defined by Assmann to refer to the term of ‘communitive or everyday memory’ to informal memory and can be directly shared between generations (up to three). 526 In comparison, a second meaning of cultural memory is that it means to live on through material culture or acts of commemoration for generations after the events take place. It is cultural because it is commemorated in cultural artefacts and practices, such as ‘texts, images, rites, buildings, monuments, cities, or even landscapes’

523 The Palestinian Museum [website], http://www.palmuseum.org/language/english, (accessed 27 July 2018). I addressed in chapter 1 the impact of the Nakba on Palestinian history and people. 524 J. Assmann, ‘Collective Memory and Cultural Identity’, New German Critique, no. 65, 1995, pp. 125-133. 525 Ibid., p. 126. 526 Ibid.

144 because the connection between groups and their collective memory has disappeared and the past memory became history.527

He also illustrates the major characteristics of the term ‘objectivised culture’. Assmann calls

‘cultural memory’ the fundamental position of a group to configure the identity of the members of the group in terms of social awareness. The notion of unity, as Assmann calls the

‘concretion of identity’, is based on the ‘formative and normative impulses from it’, in order to produce the construction of memory.528 This means the construct of cultural memory is begun by presenting the everyday/communicative memory. After that the everyday memory is transformed to objectivised culture in relation to the past and present through objective commemorations because ‘collective memory disappears, and ‘memory is transformed into history’.529 Another positive feature of cultural memory, according to Assmann is that it remains stable in connection to the past from ‘thousands of years’ and creates the reflection to the past as Assmann described the ‘retrospective contemplativeness’ that distinguished cultural memory.530

In addition, cultural memory is characterised by ‘its capacity to construct’. What is interpreted by the notion of cultural memory changes from era to era and the ‘contemporary context puts the objectivised meaning into its own perspective’ and connects the cultural objects and the present reality.531 The idea of organisation is the distinctive feature of cultural memory caused by specialisation, which is made by specialists in the cultural and educational fields, who create specific cultivations of the cultural memory in terms of remaking meaning and explication.532 Contemporary cultural memory/identity is dissimilar to the knowledge delivered from social memory, and is different in the notion of self-image of the group that

527 Ibid., p. 128. 528 Ibid., p. 128. 529 Ibid. 530 Ibid., p. 129. 531 Ibid., p. 130. 532 Ibid., p. 131.

145 represents the ‘system of values and differentiations’. This is because individuals in contemporary society tend to express new perspectives in reconstructing the important and non-important in cultural heritage (past knowledge) and symbols.533 As Assmann concludes:

[The Self-image of society] becomes visible to itself and others. Which past becomes evident in that heritage and which values emerge in its identificatory appropriation tells us much about the constitution and tendencies of a society.534

This passage explains the importance of cultural memory and heritage that remain to be shared by group and individuals in order to represent the transformation of the individuals’ memory into a shared collective memory.

4.3 The Representation of National Memory and the Class Struggle in the Palestinian

Case

This section will examine the impact of the 1948 Nakba and the 1967 Naksa on Palestinian national memory and the conflict of memories and class struggle which appear between

Israeli and Palestinian people. It will also explore Said’s work and perspective of (Israeli) colonial discourse and memory. Furthermore, I will review in this section the works of Said and Barghouti that represent collective memory and identity as well as their individual voices.

In his essay ‘Invention, memory, and place’,535 Said analyses the principle of colonial discourse and practice that is based on a selective historical tradition. The Israeli’s invented history, and controversial representation of their powerful national identity supresses and erases the Palestinians’ national history. This idea of ignoring other groups and their

533 Ibid. 534 Ibid., p. 133. 535 E. W. Said, ‘Invention, Memory, and Place’, Critical Inquiry, vol. 26, no. 2, 2000, pp. 175-192.

146 individual voices leads to the creation of the conflict of memories and class struggle that occurs between Israeli and Palestinian communities.

Said and Jo McCormack have both highlighted the impact of warfare on national memory and demonstrate that the results of the war, which are discussed in various debates are apprehensive of racial issues. For example, the memory of the Holocaust that has been reassessed brings into question the French Vichy regime because of its engagement with the

German Nazi regime during World War II.536 Through these debates there are different questions with a vast array of views as to what happened, why it (Holocaust) happened, and what it tells us about the nature of Germany and France, who collaborated in the event and created controversial and conflictive responses.537 Edward Said writes:

In any event these controversies [the representative exhibitions embodied by government official memory] raise the question not only of what is remembered but how and in what form. It is an issue about the fraught nature of representation, not just about content.538

According to Said there is a connection between memory, national identity and past

(collective) memory and he criticises the representations of memory which have been misused and harnessed by writers (historians), people and organisations in different societies, leading him to question these representations closely related to the concepts of identity, nationalism, power and authority.539 He deprecates the abuse of recalling the collective memory for supporting the national authority:

The invention of tradition is a method for using collective memory selectively by manipulating certain bits of the national past, suppressing others, elevating still others in an entirely functional way. Thus memory is not necessarily authentic, but rather useful.540

536 McCormack, pp. 1129-1130. 537 Said, Invention, Memory, and Place, pp. 175-176. 538 Ibid., p. 176. 539 Ibid., pp. 176-179. 540 Ibid., p. 179.

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The modern ‘new’ memory, however, tends to reverse the form of past memory whether it was true or false as the new memory ‘is much more subject to inventive reordering and replaying than’ the traditional memory. A nation/people, today, seek to create a coherent relationship with their identification, but it is a more flexible and organised memory.541

Moreover, there is a clear link between memory and geography associated with colonial ideology aimed at occupation of territory, domination and hegemony. Said uses the term

‘hegemony’, which was found by the Italian Marxist philosopher, Antonio Gramsci. The concept of ‘hegemony ‘ is used in postcolonial studies to mean the reference of power used by the imperial (colonial) ruler to subject the colonised people and their culture under colonial hegemony.542 Said also refers in this article to his term ‘imaginative geography’ from his well-known book Orientalism,543 when he illustrates the concept ‘imaginative geography’ to mean the idea of inventing and constructing a specific place that is described as ‘Orient’ with the purpose of controlling and dominating the space by colonisers, as in such colonised places as certain parts of Africa, India and Palestine.544 Then, a sense of nationalism arises in the native people to liberate them from colonialism, leading to the creation of complex and controversial memories between the colonisers and the colonised people.545 In the case of

Palestine, the British colonialists departed from the land, which was superseded by the establishment of the Israeli state in 1948 resulting in a Palestinian-Israeli struggle that will never end.546 Therefore, in the battle of memories between Israeli-Jewish memory and

Palestinian-Arab memory the 1948 War, for Israeli people, is a memorial victory in

541 Ibid., pp. 179-180. 542 ‘Hegemony’, in Ashcroft, Griffiths, and Tiffin, Post-Colonial Studies: The Key Concepts, pp. 116-117. 543 E. W. Said Orientalism, New York, Vintage Books, 1978. 544 Said, Invention, Memory, and Place, p. 181. 545 Ibid., p. 182. 546 Ibid.

148 opposition to the Holocaust memory, while the 1948 Nakba, for Palestinian people, is a dark and painful memory.547

In the case of Palestine and the creation of the Israeli government in 1948, Said’s important argument is that there is a matter of manipulation of the history of Palestine caused by Israeli colonialism to control the ‘geographical location' of Palestine and Palestinian people by introducing a selective and invented memory of the past making them (the Israelis) the only owners of the territory and denying others (Palestinians).548 Said refers to the historian of early Israeli studies, Keith W. Whitelam and his famous book The Invention of Ancient Israel:

The Silencing of Palestinian history.549 Whitelam argues that there was interplay of

Israeli/Zionist scholars who invented Israeli ancient history in order to associate the power of

Zionism with a European imagination of the Orient. Said acknowledges that his book,

Orientalism, excludes analysis of the discourse of biblical studies, which instituted the Israeli-

Zionist narrative:

This discourse [Israeli colonial discourse], he says [Whitelam], was really a part of Orientalism, by which Europeans imagined and represented the timeless Orient as they wished to see it, not as it was, or as its natives believed. Thus biblical studies, which created an Israel that was set apart from its environment, and supposedly brought civilization and progress to the region, was forced by Zionist ideology and by Europe’s interest in the roots of its past.550

Thus, Whitelam and Said conclude that the fundamental function of Israeli/colonial discourse was to deny Palestinian history and narratives of Palestine, leading to and justifying the displacement of thousands of Palestinian people following the Israeli occupation of 1948.551

However, the colonised or anti-colonialist discourse emerged among Palestinian writers after

547 The impacts of the Nakba on Palestinian people and the call of collective memory are addressed in Chapter 1. 548 Ibid., pp. 179-180. 549 K. W. Whitelam, The Invention of Ancient Israel: The Silencing of Palestinian history, London: Routledge, 1996. 550 Said, Invention, Memory, and Place, p. 187. 551 Ibid.

149 the 1967 Naksa as these writers sought to recover a history of a continual Palestinian national identity attached to the homeland, whilst living in the diaspora.552 The later exacerbation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the mid-1980s had multiple causes; the renaming of

Palestinian places with Jewish names such as Judea and Samaria and the replacement of

Palestinian inhabitants with Israeli settlers and the changing of the Palestinian landscape to constructed European-style houses. According to Said the changes to the landscape were more aggressive than acculturation and accommodation needs.553

The national memory contains various narratives of the past, of a nation, from family members, documents, influential events etc.,554 which leaves individuals the task of searching for their origins and examining the collective memory in term of race, religion, community and the past of family to be safe from the ‘ravages of history and a turbulent time’.555

According to Yasir Suleiman, a number of Palestinian villages, streets, and people’s names have changed to Hebrew since the Israeli occupation of Palestine in 1948. These changes served the ‘new Hebrew-dominated identity with strong Zionist overtones’556 and led to the exacerbation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in terms of the hegemony of the Israeli occupation. Furthermore, Suleiman points out that the Arabic language is viewed among

Israeli-Jewish people as inappropriate for colonial discourse:

It [the Arabic language] is aligned with negative images among Israel Jews, and is seen as an inferior and background language, as well as the language of the enemy. From the Arab side, these [Palestinian] writers would have struggled to attract readers in sufficient numbers to compensate for their lost readership in Israel.557

552 Ibid., p. 189. 553 Ibid. 554 Ibid., p. 177. 555 Ibid. 556 Y. Suleiman, Arabic, Self and Identity; A study in Conflict and Displacement, New York: Oxford University Press, 2011, p. 164- 179. 557 Suleiman, Arabic in the Fray, p. 190-191.

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This explains how the Arabic language is disregarded as a language in colonial discourse based on Zionist ideology (Hebrew is the official language of the Israeli occupation).558 A number of Arab writers who have lived in Israel, such as Palestinian writer and novelist

Anton Shammas, as well as the Iraqi writers Shalom Darwish and Sami Michael, switch their literary work from Arabic to Hebrew, despite their disbelief in Zionism.559 However, for

Mahmoud Darwish, the writing of poetry in Arabic is fundamental in order to configure Arab identity and confront the Israeli colonial discourse. Achille Mbembe argues that, although

Darwish never had to write his work in Hebrew, the ‘Israeli language and culture shaped

Darwish’s identity’.560 Darwish once said in an interview, ‘At this moment we are speaking about the Israeli component of Palestinian identity. It is a multivalent, heterogeneous element.

I need heterogeneity; it (the Israeli-Hebrew culture) enriches me.’561

Furthermore, Said explores the concept of invented memory - history as an essential component of colonial memory which legitimises the appropriation of the land and to possess authority, power and patrimony. His re-reading of the Israel-Palestinian conflict as Israeli colonialism forced invented memory and historical narrative to connect to the land (Palestine) for one national history (Israeli nation) regardless of other groups (Palestinian people) and individuals’ memories which it repressed. Said concludes his article that Palestinian people desire peace and co-existence between Israelis and Palestinians if Israeli colonialism acknowledged the existence of Palestinian history and memory.562

558 Ibid., pp. 34-35. 559 Ibid., p. 191. I addressed in Chapter 3 of this thesis the notion of writing in Hebrew among Palestinian writers, which is a result of the marginalisation of the Arabic language by colonial discourse and ideology. 560 A. Mbembé, ‘Palestinian Identity in Hybrid Texts in Hebrew’, L'identité est un triple mouvement d'effraction, de, Cairo: Middle East Studies, 2017, pp. 3-4. 561 Ibid., p. 3. And see: H. Yeshurun, ‘Exile Is So Strong Whiten Me. I May Bring it to the Land: A landmark 1996 Interview with Mahmoud Darwish’, Journal of Palestine Studies, vol. 42, no. 1, 2020, p. 69. 562 E. Mena, ‘The Geography of Poetry: Mahmoud Darwish and Postnational identity’, Human Architecture: journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge, vol. 7, no. 5, 2009, p. 192.

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Examining the fundamental position of new memory in the contemporary context, represents the subaltern discourse and view in Palestinian literary works. Nora’s definition of the term

‘new memory’ or as Nora also calls it ‘new history’ means the articulation of marginal voices; either working class, Occitanian (Occitan nation who live in the areas of Southern France) or women’s memory to make ‘the advent of historical consciousness of defunct traditions’ as individual voices and groups never spoke about themselves in the past or were silent throughout history and the construction of national memory shaped one collective memory rather than various identifications. However, these groups believe the essentials of reconstructing their traditional memory as a piece of their identity.563 According to Elizabeth

Rachoniewski, the emergence of subordinated memories (in her examination of the French nation which includes female and working class memories) in the new history may be broadly considered as the recounting of cultural history in the post-war periods.564 She says:

Memory – which had long been subordinated to history as unreliable, folkloric and unscientific- came back into its own: one might speak of the “revenge” of repressed memory, as previously dominated groups demanded their right to remember.565

The new memory also distinguishes itself in the transformation from social consciousness to individual self-consciousness as the function of collective memory has been discontinued and now in the new memory in favour to represent the various groups of nation, which were mute because of an idea of collective memory in the traditional memory. As Nora says:

The new history required historians to “construct the objects” of their research, thus facing them to break down the homogeneity of historical time to the point of destroying classical temporal identities.566

563 Nora, The Construction of the French Past, pp. 626-627. 564 E. Rachoniewski, ‘The Construction of National Memory in the ‘Era of Commemoration’, Culture & Memory: Special Issue of Modern Greek Studies (Australia and New Zealand), 2006, pp. 68-69. 565 Ibid., p. 69. 566 Nora, The Construction of the French Past, p. 627.

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Hence, the new memory, according to Nora, explores individuals’ views in later commemorations due to the impact of collective (historical) memory and political commemoration which has been in decline. Namely, there are different points of view based on the different political cultures of the historians and writers, exposing new images that talk about the past, expressed through individual commemoration. These new historians and writers have the task of rewriting the narratives of national history to represent their views in the contemporary context and liberate them from official political views.567 Nora’s view of the importance of individual memories in the creation of new memory and redefinition of national memory is to rethink past collective memory and measure its truth, or as Nora calls it, the ‘tranquil assurance’ of the past memory.568 Rachoniewski argues that the examination of the past collective memory has great significance on individual memories today. He says:

In the contemporary world memory is often associated with authenticity. We have all experienced the immediacy and vividness of individual memories and so the memories of actual participants, or traditional accounts handed down, spontaneously, in direct line from generation to generation, seem to offer a link of sphere certainty (the true memory).569

In his autobiographical work, Out of Place: A Memoir,570 Said draws heavily on his personal memories including childhood memories, shared with friends and family members. He also recollects the impact of historical events which occurred from World War II to the Oslo

Treaty Agreement 1993 (signed in 1995) on him and the Arab region as dark memories, especially the loss of his homeland (Palestine) caused by the creation of the Israeli government in 1948 (Nakba), the 1967 War (Naksa) and the Lebanese Civil War (1975-

1990). He writes: ‘These [sites of memory/historical events] are in my memoir only

567 Ibid., pp. 628-629. 568 Ibid., p. 628. 569 Rachoniewski, p. 77. 570 E. W. Said, Out of Place: A Memoir, London, Granta, 2000. The Said’s autobiography has been turned to film by the Filmmaker Sato Makoto in 2006. See: Out of Place: A Memoirs of Edward Said (Sato Makoto 2006), [YouTube video], 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1_6Uwix4Mw, (accessed 15 March 2018).

153 allusively, even though their fugitive presence can be seen here and there’.571 He reconstructs these historical moments and the sites of memory to create new memory that is in contrast to old memory. The new memory affirms his Palestinian identity that had been denied and the self-identity of his personal awareness and cultural development throughout his exile. His experiences in different cities (Cairo, Jerusalem, Beirut and New York) speak of the powerful marginal voice and the class struggle of the marginal society suffering from colonial authority and hegemony.572

Said also recalls the displacement of Palestinian people from the West Jerusalem area including the areas of Ṭālbiyya (Talbiyah), Qaṭamūn (Katamon) and Upper and Lower Baq’a, which were only inhabited by Palestinians: ‘Most of whom my family knew and whose names still ring familiarly in my ears - Salameh, Dajani, Awad, Khidr, Badour, David, Jamal,

Baramki, Shammas, Tannous, Qabein - all of whom became refugees’ because of the 1948

Nakba. These areas as Said remembers have been repopulated by Jewish people who came from Poland, Germany and America to settle in the city (West Jerusalem).573

Said’s Out of Place draws together varied facts and effects (his reluctant attitude about the social and family construction and the idea of obligation) that urged him to reconstruct the collective identity (Palestinian-Arab identity) to allow himself to configure his own new identity in relation to a host culture in exile; an ambivalent identity gathering his fragmented

Palestinian-Arab, Christian, and American identities which were shattered by dark historical events. Although the self-identity of Said sought autonomy and shaped his ideological and political awareness, it maintains the collective memory to be flexible and a division of other personal, family, and group memories. Moreover, the great value of his personal memory

(Said’s autobiography) is to expand the collective memory within an individual narrative (Out

571 Said, p. xv. 572 A. Confino, ‘Remembering Talbiyah: On Edward Said’s Out of Place’, Israeli Studies, vol. 5, no. 2, 2000, p. 182. 573 Said, Out of Place, pp. 110-111.

154 of Place) emphasising the marginal voice of the new memory.574 The individual consciousness plays a key role in extending the national history and narratives for placing individual memories as a division to construct the national identity. Darwish and Mourid

Barghouti have also objectivised the Palestinian (collective) memory in textual form by recalling the contemporary historical events in their literary works.

In the well-known autobiographical work, I Saw Ramallah,575 which won the Naguib

Mahfouz Medal for literature in 1997, Mourid Barghouti portrays the narrative of his return to the motherland (Ramallah, located in the West Bank) in 1996 after an exile of 30 years. His journey began in 1966 when he left the homeland as a voluntary exile to study in Cairo describing the feeling of estrangement and the diasporic life. His coming back in 1996 to

Ramallah represented in I Saw Ramallah is mainly marked by the theme of sadness and sorrow at how the land was transformed by the occupation. Its identity under the control of the Israeli occupation, the renaming of the land by Israel especially after the 1967 Naksa, the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, through to contemporary Israeli dominance and denial of the existence of Palestinian identity and history resulted in mixed feelings of loss and nostalgia at seeing a homeland after an extended separation.

Barghouti’s I Saw Ramallah argues that the image of victim is not associated with Israeli-

Jewish victimhood, remembering it being promoted by the Israeli government in the speech of Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin (1992-1995), who expressed in his unforgotten phrase: ‘We [Israelis] are the victims of war and violence. We have not known a year or a month when mothers have not mourned their sons’.576 Barghouti’s main critique confronts this colonial discourse which denies Palestinian voices and suffering in terms of considering them as voiceless and violent:

574 Said, Invention, Memory, and Place, p. 175. 575 M. Barghouti, I Saw Ramallah, trans. A. Soueif, New York: Anchor Books, 2003. 576 Ibid., p. 67.

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Rabin has taken everything, even the story of our death. This leader knew how to demand that the world should respect Israeli blood, the blood of every Israeli individual without exception. He knew who to demand that the world should respect Israeli tears, and he was able to present Israel as the victim of a crime perpetrated by us [Palestinians]. He changed facts, he altered the order of things, he presented us as the imitators of violence in the Middle East.577

The passage explains that Israeli colonial discourse constructs a misleading image of the

Israeli victim, whilst ignoring prominent motifs of occupation and oppression. It denies the existence of Palestinian identity and their right of resistance, as well as denying the displaced

Palestinian people scattered in different places of the globe the right of return to their homeland.

Nora views the concept of the ‘new memory’ as meaning the configuration of new identity as well as patrimony. The patrimony has changed to mean in contemporary time, the holding of collective and national individual memories as memorial elements to reveal individuals and divided groups of nations to shape the national history, but by breaking down the traditional form of national history as only one national history. Nora writes:

Le patrimoine [the heritage] no longer stands for the overall collective identity of the society as a whole; instead, it has become a constituent part of a subgroup identity, of a social category perceived exclusively in terms of its cultural dimension. Cultural agencies were now required to adapt, using all means at their disposal, to the transition from historical age for which they were created to the new memorial age.578

The hallmark of the ‘new memory’ is that the individual experience is regarded as a fundamental source for national memory because individual memories participate in developing the national memory (multiple cultural identity) and replenish the history of the

577 Ibid. 578 Nora, The Construction of the French Past, pp. 631-632.

156 nation and ‘reassemble the shattered whole’ of collective memory, which was destroyed by historical events and politics.579

Darwish’s recollection of the 1967 Naksa and the 40th commemoration of that dreadful event is given voice in his poem ‛awdat ḥuzayrān,580 where he depicts the impact of the Naksa on

Palestinian collective memory made of individual wounded memories among Palestinian people. The poem displays the poet’s internal monologue as follows:

هل حزيراﻥ ﺫكرﻯ؟ فقلﺖ: هﻲ الجر ُﺡ Is June a memory? It is the wound, I said ينزﻑ حﻴاً ﻭحﻴ ا، ﻭلﻮ قاﻝ صاحبه: قد That bleeds alive and alive in the memory, even if the wounded said ‘I have forgotten نسﻴ ُﺖ األلم!the pain’!581 582

This text cites the memorial event of Palestinian history, which is the Naksa memory. This historical moment considered to be a dark memory among Palestinian people in light of loss larger territories. He also describes the names of goods, fruits and grains have turned to

Hebrew names. He writes,

‘The trucks passed which carried goods with Hebrew names: water boxes, fruits, wheat and wine… And here is the fortieth memorial of June. A land that shrinks and people multiply … They [Palestinians] exceed the poor people’s need for grass and the Ashkenazi Jews’ need for Arab workers. But they are resilient despite their will, and they do not leave the homeland [Palestine] for Canada. This is our land’.583

Darwish also symbolises the notion of peace by using ‘Doves’ while the war made more conflict between Israeli and Palestinian people, as he says: ‘A Dove flying inside a half circle’584 which means the Palestinians are separated from Israeli community led to the creation of a Palestinian diaspora (internal diaspora) inside Palestine under Israeli

579 Ibid., pp. 609, 632, 636. 580 “The Return of June”. 581 It is my translation. 582 M. Darwish, ‘‛awdat ḥuzayrān’, in Athar al-farāsha: yawmīyāt, Beirut: Riyad Al-Rayys, 2008, p. 266. 583 Ibid. 584 Ibid., p. 265.

157 occupation.585 Furthermore, the poem confirms the maintenance of Palestinian identity and resistance in terms of remaining in the homeland despite of Palestinians living in poverty.

I Saw Ramallah also describes Barghouti’s feeling of alienation caused by the 1967 Naksa.

He recalls one of the most influential writers and thinkers of the Abbasid period, Abu Hayyan

Al-Tawhidi (Ali Ibn Mohammed Ibn Abbas) who articulated the notion of foreignness and feeling a stranger. However, Barghouti’s stranger state in the modern era is more complex and greatly affected by the colonial authority and the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian land.586 There is a sense of sarcasm in the language applied in I Saw Ramallah. For example, he narrates two synchronous events, the publishing of his first poem and the 1967 defeat:

My first poem [Apology to faraway soldier] published on this strange morning. On the cover of the magazine [The Theater Magazine], date: Monday, June 5, 1967. A journalist once asked me about this. I told him the story, then added, joking: “I wonder if the Arabs were defeated and Palestine was lost because I wrote a poem”. We laughed and did not laugh.587

To sum up, these Palestinian writers in their memoirs and autographical works play a key role to explain the theme of representation of the individual voices and class struggle (Palestinian people), claiming the Palestinian rights to Israelis’ acknowledgement of Palestinian national memory and traditional history and justice to return and live in their homeland in peace and co-existence between Palestinian and Israeli people.

585 The theme of Palestinian displacement and diaspora is examined in Chapter 3. As Palestinian Peoples who live inside Palestine their movements are controlled by Israeli occupation, and their connections to other Palestinians, particularly in the West Bank and Gaza, were restricted. 586 Barghouti, I Saw Ramallah, pp. 3-4, 174. 587 Ibid., p. 8.

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4.4 The Transformation of Memory Post-Naksa and the Battle of Individual and

Collective Memories in the Work of Darwish

Following on from the previous section concerning the representation of Palestinian memory that includes both collective and individual memories and awareness voices, this section examines the shifts and conflict between individual and national (collective) memories in

Darwish’s work after the 1967 Naksa. The 1967 Naksa, the 1982 Siege of Beirut, and the

1987 First Intifada are events which greatly affected Darwish’s work and caused him pragmatic and persistent injuries as sites on his memory and led him to re-construct his own memory and identity. According to Jeffrey Sacks; ‘these dates which make a history encrypted into Darwish’s language’ are considered as witness of the coloniser’s violence and the notion of the Palestinian struggle.588 Furthermore, this section will explore the use of dramatic structure in Darwish post-Naksa work which is characterised by displaying narrative and dramatic elements such as dialogues, narrations, scenes and conflict between characters

(that create different voices and the battle of individual and collective memories).

In this section, post-colonial concepts including hegemony, stereotype and counter- memory/discourse will be applied to the work of Darwish that speaks of anti-colonial voices and resistance. This section will also apply Nora’s theory of new memory and the concept

‘sites of memory’ in relation to Darwish’s post-Naksa work as a memorial moment and a site of memory. Additionally, Assmann’s theory of collective memory and cultural identity will be applied on Darwish’s texts that represent his self-identity and national (collective) memory and development of his own identity during exile and diaspora. In his long prose poem,

Memory for Forgetfulness: August, Beirut, 1982,589 Darwish recounts the 1982 Siege of

588 J. Sacks, ‘Language Places’, in H. K. Nassar and N. Rahman (ed.), Mahmoud Darwish Exile Poet: Critical Essays. Massachusetts: Olive Branch Press, 2008, pp. 239, 252-255. I addressed in chapters 1 and 2 the impact of the 1948 Nakba (pre-Naksa) in the work of Darwish that was concerned with the collective memory (Palestinian-Arab) rather than his own memory, which transformed post-Naksa. 589 M. Darwish, Memory for Forgetfulness: August, Beirut, 1982, tran. I. Muhawi, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995.

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Beirut and its apocalyptic scenes. He recalls his memories during the period of the siege, which took place from the 14th of June to the 23th of August 1982. According to Ibrahim

Muhawi, Memory for Forgetfulness represents two voices, Darwish expresses his own memory and that view is conflictive with the collective memory and view, namely, the battle of forgettable or unforgettable historical nation (the Palestinian collective experience).590

Muhawi explains that the conflict between Darwish’s individual voice and the collective voice of Palestinians is clear in the title paradoxically, it represents the intentional confrontation between aiming to recall the dark memories of the Siege of Beirut and the desire to forget and purge the ‘violent emotions attached to the events described’.591 In the introduction, Muhawi writes ‘the poet’s collection is transformed into a text and his purgation becomes an act of memory, a monument against forgetfulness and the ravages of history’.592

Darwish’s use of memory is necessary to emblematise a motif of Palestinian resistance and express their subaltern voice.593 His memoir therefore is viewed as an alternative history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict attempts to ‘liberate the Palestinian nation from the hegemonic structure of colonialism.594

Furthermore, the text of Memory for Forgetfulness plays a key role in transforming the

Palestinian national experience and struggle from the local and regional dimension to the universal dimension regarding human space.595 The beginning of Memory for Forgetfulness remembers the horrific events of the 1982 Siege of Beirut. Darwish describes the horrors of the war scenes, the intensive bombings and missiles during the Siege:

Three o’clock. Daybreak riding on fire. A nightmare coming from the sea. Roosters made of metal. Smoke. Metal preparing a feast for metal

590 I. Muhawi, ‘Introduction’, in Darwish, Memory for Forgetfulness, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995. p. xviii. 591 Ibid., pp. xviii-xix. 592 Ibid. 593Bhillon, ‘Subaltern Voices and Perspectives: The Poetry of Mahmoud Darwish’, pp. 57-60. 594 Ibid., pp. 62-63. 595 Ibid.

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the master, and a dawn that flares up in all the senses before it breaks. A roaring that chases me out of bed and throws me into this narrow hallway.596

He evokes how an unusual day/dawn can be in this context, even the birdsongs in the early morning being transferred to the sounds of war weapons and the painful shift from war to the even harder siege. The day also affected the daily housework tasks such as making his coffee which ‘became a challenge to the bombs’ in light of the ‘extraordinary conditions of the siege’s day, as the cup of coffee for Darwish is an essential of daily life that being made by his hands assists the creative aesthetic of writing.597

Moreover, Darwish’s memoir narrates the situation of Palestinian people particularly the second generation of Palestinians who were born in exile in a host country (Lebanon during the 1982 Siege of Beirut and the 1975 Lebanese Civil War). As Darwish says:

The distant homeland - that fragrance they’ve never smelled because they weren’t born on her soil. She [Palestine] bore them, but they were born away from her. Yet they study her constantly, without fatigue or boredom; and from overpowering memory and constant pursuit, they know what it means to belong to her. “You’re aliens here [Lebanon]”, they say to them there [Palestine]. “You’re aliens here [Lebanon]”, they say to them here [Lebanon].598

These Palestinian refugees who live in Lebanon are an unwelcome and unaccepted community to the Lebanese government as well as in the Israeli occupied territories.

Additionally, they came without identity into refugee camps in the host country and are regarded as a ‘burden to their families and tent neighbours’ because the conditions of these camps were not prepared for additional numbers.599 Therefore, Darwish evokes the

Palestinian collective experience as a marginal community in exile in terms of remembering

596 Darwish, Memory for Forgetfulness, p. 4. 597 Ibid., p. vx, 5-7. 598 Ibid., p. 13. 599 Ibid., pp. 13-14.

161 their voices. He describes how they faced different types of injustice and subjugation and articulates his claim that Palestinians are ‘forgotten ones, disconnected from the social fabric

[in host countries], these outcasts, deprived of their oppression because it provides them with the blessings of memory’.600

What is more, Memory for Forgetfulness represents the two voices and the conflict and gap between two close communities (Palestinian and Lebanese people) who uplifted the Arab nationality and unity at the time of the 1982 Siege of Beirut which placed these two nations in conflict. Darwish applies the dialogue style between him and his neighbour’s wife who lived on the same floor flats, he describes the Lebanese neighbour as an ‘innovative poet; perhaps he was the first to use the form of the prose poem’. Darwish also illustrates the close relationship between him and the Lebanese neighbour as he had allowed the neighbour to live in his flat for six months while Darwish was away. However, the conflict between the two voices appears in the dialogue between the narrator (Darwish) and his neighbour’s wife:

Says she, ‘You know there’s no problem between Maronites [Lebanese government] and Jews [Israeli occupation]”. I say, “I don’t know that”. Says she, “What do you know we’re allies”. I say, “I don’t know that”. Says she, “What do you know then”. I say, “I know water has colour, flavour, and aroma”. Says she, “Why don’t you Palestinians go back to your country? Then the problem will be over”. I say, “They [Arab countries] said to us what you’re saying now [the idea of staying in Arab countries and fighting there]. They kicked us out. And there we are, fighting along with the Lebanese in defense of Beirut and our very existence”.601

600 Ibid., pp. 15-16. 601 Ibid., pp. 39-40.

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This text explores the key role of colonial authority (Israeli colonialism) in creating division within the Palestinian-Lebanese community that was caused by the 1975 Lebanese Civil War.

The 1982 Siege of Beirut was supported by Israeli occupation and was associated with the

Maronite Lebanese government. Darwish and Said have affirmed that the 1975 Lebanese

Civil War was decisive and divided. Said pointed out a prominent and Politician figure,

Charles Malik who turned from supporting Palestinian issues, speaking of Palestinian-Arabs after the 1948 Nakba, to become an ‘anti-Palestinian architect’ participating with the Christian alliance and the Israeli government during the war.602 This means that the transformation of

Malik is from a positive intellectual figure to a negative one. Said believed that collective resistance was necessary throughout the Lebanese Civil War (1975-1990), regardless of the different communities in Lebanon.603

Furthermore, the theme of new identity and memory appears in Darwish’s work after the 1982

Siege of Beirut as he aims to reconstruct his own identity, his poetic creation and cultural developments. He evokes the narrative of Adam’s departure from Eden applied to himself losing his homeland and speaks of his self-identity, the human that confirms identity, as

Adam is regarded as ‘the original epic hero of human history.604 He writes: ‘The saga of

Adam’s exit from Paradise, repeated in endless sagas of exodus. I no longer have a country: I no longer have a body’.605 According to Ali, Darwish’s experience after 1982 and his departure from Beirut, led to his work emphasising a wider vision of humanity and opens to assimilate other cultures both new and old. He points to Darwish’s description of, ‘the transformation and the development of Palestinian ideology and identification that was caused by the mythical event through the 1982 Siege of Beirut to the formation of human space’.606

602 Said, Out of Place, pp. 264-269. 603 Ibid., p. 267. 604 Muhawi, ‘Introduction’, in Darwish, Memory for Forgetfulness, p. xv. 605 Darwish, Memory for Forgetfulness, p. 51. 606 Ali. Bunyat al-qaṣīda fī shi‛r Maḥmūd Darwīsh, p. 79.

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Erica Mena argues that Darwish is described as a ‘post-national writer’ in light of his national imagination in his work. It expands both the geography and the nation and his shift to create and articulate the historical narrations of the Palestinian nation ‘that is without national borders’.607

In addition, Darwish’s Memory for Forgetfulness explores the poet’s reconstruction and transformation of cultural identity which affirms his Palestinian identity as part of a larger scale Arab national identification. He also considers his poetic and literary identity in light of his self-awareness and national revolutionary standing between modernity and heritage. All these facets of identity are crossing self and other traditional and modern cultures to configure the human identity against brutal and dramatic events and the sectarian and cultural conflicts surrounding him. The essence of Darwish’s work is to cross political and cultural borders which attempts to create dialogue between Israeli and Palestinian people in his poetic discourse. For instance, the Lebanese poet and writer Said Akl’s view on discrimination against the Palestinian people who lived in Lebanon during the Lebanese Civil War (1975-

1990) described the Palestinian child as ‘enemy’.608

Conversely, Darwish explains his constant commitment to cultural collective identity or, as

Hall defines it, the fixed and stable collective culture shared between members (individuals) of a group in order to confirm the class (ethnicity) struggle.609 Darwish confirms Arab and

Palestinian identity is linked to Arab culture and the connection to the Palestinian homeland and the dream of a return to Jerusalem / Palestine:610

We [Palestinian writers] realise we’re a part of the culture of Arab nation and not an island within it. Therefore, we’ve never accepted our voice as the voice of a narrow identity, but see it instead as the meeting point for a

607 E. Mena, ‘The Geography of Poetry: Mahmoud Darwish and Postnational identity’, Human Architecture: journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge’ vol. 7, no. 5, 2009, pp. 111-118. 608 Darwish, Memory for Forgetfulness, p. 135. 609 Hall, Cultural Identity and Diaspora, p. 223. 610 Darwish, pp. 172-175.

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deeper relation between the Arab writer and his time, in which the Palestinian revolution will become the open password, until the general explosion.611 Hall called the second definition of ‘cultural identity’, the changeable definition of cultural identity. This definition is based on an ambivalent culture of colonial society which is distinguished by the continual development and changes of individuals (colonised people in diaspora), although they are considered as other and marginal people.612

Likewise, Darwish recalls the Hiroshima event, which took place during World War II as similar to the horrific and unforgettable day, 6th of August, when the Siege began. He says:

‘On this day, on the anniversary of the Hiroshima bomb, they [Israeli and Lebanese militaries] are trying out the vacuum bomb on our [Palestinians] flesh, and the experiment is successful’.613 Beirut’s siege bears heroic proportions and his ‘walk on the streets and city

[Beirut] during an apocalyptic day is regarded as an odyssey’.614 Therefore, Memory for

Forgetfulness is considered to be both an historical record and a commutative work that recites the idea of the ‘resistance of Lebanese and Palestinian people’.615 It also seems to be a plea to ask the Israeli occupation to stop the act of violence toward Palestinian people.

Darwish describes himself as a shāhid (witness) of the siege and a witness of the events martyrdom.

According to Muhawi, Darwish’s work creates a theme of gravestone or epitaph writing which are all witnesses to historical events (the 1982 Siege of Beirut), Darwish writes: ‘I could thus protect myself and perhaps others from the turmoil of the moment by shifting from martyr to spectator’.616 The 1975 Lebanese Civil War and the 1982 Siege of Beirut events forced the Lebanese-Palestinian community as one collective nation (Arab nation) to be

611 Ibid., pp. 137-138. 612 Hall, pp. 225-228. 613 Darwish, Memory for Forgetfulness, p. 84. 614 Muhawi, ‘Introduction’, in Darwish, Memory for Forgetfulness, p. xv. 615 Ibid., p. xx. 616 Ibid. And see: Darwish, Memory for Forgetfulness, p. 121.

165 divided into two communities in conflict. Darwish’s prose poem characterises the major impact of the war and the siege as creating a new model of conflict of the Lebanese community against the Palestinian community. This brought about the collapse of al-qawmī al-‛arabī (Arab nationalist) and Zionist alliances caused by the Israeli colonial backing to the

Lebanese Civil War and the 1982 Siege of Beirut.

French historian and writer Ernest Renan explains the notion of suppression of a nation that is ruled by a colonial ethnic view. Renan points out that these nations are recognised as

‘intermediary groups’ (i.e. colonised groups),617 and that ‘forgetting is a crucial factor in the creation of a nation’.618 Mainly, the idea of collective memory entitled a lot of forgetting that includes family, friend, group and national memories. For Darwish, the process of forgetting the dark historical events in the Israel-Palestinian conflict is conducted in his literary work by recalling these events in order to give birth to the idea of the Palestinian nation. In his poem hadhā huwa al-nisyān (This is forgetfulness),619 Darwish explains the concept of ‘forgetting’:

This is forgetfulness around you: billboards awakening the past, urging remembrance. Reining in the speeding time at traffic lights. and closing up of the squares.

This text evokes the notion of forgetting the poet’s view through remembering his past memories such as childhood memories, family memories and homeland memories that are pleasant and vivid memories. He also attempted to narrate the dark historical events and the status of Palestinian people in displacement and exile. Then, Darwish concludes the poem to confirm the essential characteristic of recalling the Palestinian narrative. He says:

617 McCormack, p. 11130. 618 J. Westover, ‘National Forgetting and Remembering in the Poetry of Robert Frost’, Texas studies in literature and Language, vol. 46. No. 2, 2004, p. 213. 619 “This is Forgetfulness”.

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And an empty museum of tomorrow is cold, narrating the seasons already chosen from the start. This is forgetfulness: that you remember the past and not remember tomorrow in the story.620

In short, Darwish devotes his literary work to memorialise the narrative of Palestinians in exile.621 According to Barahmeh, the work of Darwish after the 1982 Siege of Beirut is distinguished by his recounting of historical events, including the 1948 Nakba, the 1967

Naksa, and the story of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon after the agony of the Israeli invasion and the 1982 Siege of Beirut.622

There is a clear link between the concepts of memory and stereotype as the Orient (East) is defined by western invented memory and represented in colonial discourse, while the anti- colonial discourse as in the case of Darwish’s work attempts to act a counter-memory in terms of reconstructing the Palestinian national memory and his cultural identity.

In Said’s noted work, Orientalism,623 he explores his antithetical views to the negative stereotypical images of colonial discourse concerning the ‘Orient’. Defined as an exotic, feminine and weak region invented by European scholars, intellectuals and literary writers to serve political authorities and interests in order to emphasise the colonial Western domination and culture, the representation of the East ‘Orient’ is intrinsically bound to a conflict between

Orient and Occident; nonetheless Said’s Orientalism argues that the ‘Orient is an integral part of European material civilization and culture’.624 Furthermore, in Orientalism, which is the essence and fountainhead of postcolonial theory, Said explains imperial discourse and

620 M. Darwish, The Butterfly’s Burden, trans. F. Joudah, Washington: Copper Canyon Press, 2007, p. 233. 621 The theme of recollecting Palestinian stories of displacement and exile has been discussed in Chapter 3. 622 Barahmeh, The Poetry of Mahmoud Darwish, pp. 18-20. 623 E. W. Said, Orientalism, New York, Vintage Books, 1978. 624 Ibid., pp. 1-5, 7, 12.

167 identity.625 One of the main negative stereotypes Said highlights is the image of Western cultural and political domination vis-à-vis the Eastern politics and culture. He writes:

There is in addition the hegemony of European ideas about the Orient, themselves reiterating European superiority over Oriental backwardness, usually overriding the possibility that a more independent, or more sceptical, thinker might have had different views on the matter.626

Said’s view in Orientalism illustrates that the Western hegemonic discourse made the ‘East discursively as the West’s inferior (Otherness)’, and created negative characteristics

(stereotypical images) of the East as the latter is regarded as ‘voiceless, sensual, female, despotic, irrational, backward; while the ‘West is characteristically represented in positive terms, as masculine, democratic, rational, moral, dynamic and progressive’.627 Bhabha, who has developed Said’s work of Orientalism to coin postcolonial theory examined the construction of colonial discourse which is based on fixed characteristics or, as Bhabha terms it, ‘fixity’ to refer to the ‘sign of cultural/historical/ racial difference’ that occurs between coloniser and colonised people in the colonial discourse.628 However, he mentions that the essential of understanding the concept of stereotype by putting it in ambivalent form concerns historical changes, individual views and margins.

Bhabha’s view of stereotype is not to be interpreted to recognise neither true nor non-true images but more importantly to understand the ‘process of subjectification made possible (and plausible) through stereotypical discourse and includes the involvement of coloniser and

625 B. Moore-Gilbert, G. Stanton and W. Maley (eds.), Postcolonial Criticism, Harlow: Addison Wesley Longman, 1997, p. 21. 626 Said Orientalism, p. 7. 627 Moore-Gilbert, Stanton and Maley, Postcolonial Criticism, p. 23. 628 Bhabha, The Location of Culture, p. 66.

168 colonised identifications’;629 it represents the battle of ‘power and resistance, domination and dependence’.630

Furthermore, Bhabha argues that the notion of power-knowledge in colonial discourse which

Said uses (power-knowledge discourse from post-modernist and post-structuralist French theorist, Michel Foucault explained that knowledge is not neutral because of non-true political power) in terms of the misreading of the Orient in the colonial (Western) discourse. In

Orientalism, Said describes how colonial discourse ‘does not face up the problems it creates for an instrumentalist notion of power/knowledge that he seems to require’, namely the matter of the discourse is either configured or disfigured.631 In contrast, Bhabha’s thought of the stereotype as ‘an ambivalent mode of power-knowledge discourse’632 is according to Rahul

Sapra a disruption of the polarity in the power-knowledge discourse that connects the subject of colonial identification; coloniser and the colonised construction.633 As Bhabha says:

The construction of colonial discourse is then a complex articulation of the tropes of fetishism-metaphor and metonymy - and the forms of narcissistic and aggressive identification available to the imaginary.634

In this passage Bhabha explains the motif of stereotype of the discourse of colonialism in terms of its understanding of the culture of colonised people based on racist identity, ignoring the notion of individual’s thoughts and development. Bhabha however, defines the concept of stereotype as follows.

Stereotyping is not the setting up of false image which becomes the scapegoat of discriminatory practices. It is much more ambivalent text of projection and introjection, metaphoric and metonymic strategies, displacement, over-determination, guilt, aggressivity; the masking and

629 Ibid., p. 67. 630 Ibid. 631 Ibid., p. 72. 632 Ibid., p. 66. 633 R. Sapra, The Limits of Orientalism: Seventeen-Century Representations of India, Newark. University of Delaware Press, 2011, p. 16. 634 Bhabha, The Location of Culture, p. 77.

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splitting of ‘official’ and phantasmatic knowledge to construct the positionalities and oppositionalities of racist discourse.635

Said and Bhabha’s reflections on stereotype are relevant to Darwish’s work as it is considered to be counter-memory. Darwish represents anti-colonial dominant discourse and breaking the idea of stereotype and defeating the Israeli cultural hegemony as his work seems to be a powerful knowledge and act of resistance when he writes:

Arab culture is open to its diverse and multifaceted history at a time when it is being exposed to more than one effort to fragment it or strangle it at birth. Thus we [Palestinian writers] don’t say that culturally the East is totally East and the West, West, because we don’t acknowledge just one East or one West; and don’t wish to be imprisoned in meaning we ourselves didn’t choose freely.636

Darwish illustrates that his own culture is not fixed and that it encompasses different cultures, including Eastern and Western cultures. What is relevant to representation of stereotype in colonial discourse, according to Bhabha is a ‘complex, ambivalent, contradictory mode of representation, as anxious as it is assertive, and demands not only that we extend our critical and political objectives but that we change the object or analysis itself’637 in order to include anti-colonial objectives and views.

Nora’s concepts of the ‘sites of memory’ and ‘new memory’ are relevant to explore

Darwish’s work post-Naksa. His work aims to configure the Palestinian national memory as he uses the dramatic structure that characterises his work by displaying narrative, conflict of characters, events, dialogues and different voices. His work also suggests that the Israeli and

Palestinian people should co-exist and live together in peace.638 The emergence of this idea

635 Ibid., pp. 81-82. 636 Darwish, Memory for Forgetfulness, p. 138. 637 Bhabha, The Location of Culture, pp. 69-70. 638 For further information see: Barahmeh, The Poetry of Mahmoud Darwish, p. 12. And see: Mattawa, Mahmoud Darwish: The Poet’s Art and His Nation, pp. 51-56.

170 can be found in the poems Rita wa al-bunduqiyya639 and jundī yaḥlum bil zanābiq al-

:In the last stanzas of his long poem Kitāba ̔ala ḍaw’ bunduqiyya. Darwish says 640.ۥbayḍā

كل قﻮمﻴاتنا قشرﺓ مﻮﺯ، ,All our nationalisms are a banana skin فكر ت يﻮماً على ساعدﻩ. ,She thought once in his arm ﻭأتى سﻴمﻮﻥ يحمﻴها من الحﺐ القديم ,Simon came to protect her from the old love ﻭمن الكفر بقﻮمﻴتها. .And from denial of her nationalism كاﻥ محمﻮﺩ سجﻴناً يﻮمها .Mahmoud was in prison at the time كانﺖ الرملة فرﺩﻭساً له .. كانﺖ جحﻴم. .Ramla was a paradise for him... it was hell كانﺖ الرقصة تُغريها بأﻥ تهلك فﻲ The dance used to entice her to melt into اإليقاﻉ ، ,The Rhythm أﻥ تنعس ، فﻴما بعد، فﻲ صدﺭ ﺭحﻴم. .To sleep, afterwards, in a merciful bosom سكر اإليقاﻉ.The drunkenness of the rhythm. 641 642

This poem criticises the misuse of nationalism that denies otherness by showing the dialogue and multi-voice (Bakhtin’s term ‘Heteroglossia’) occurs between the ‘Shulamit’, a Jewish lady, and a Palestinian character ‘Mahmoud’ that represents the view of the latter saying that:

‘All our nationalism is a banana peel’643 which symbolises the coexistence between Israeli and Palestinian communities as one historical nation, and to what extent the confusion in the character ‘Shulamit’ in light of the impact of the 1967 Naksa shows the struggle of whether to co-exist or to not-exist with otherness. Darwish also uses a flashback technique which allows us to move back to the past narration by showing two main conflict events, the first event occurs in a bar occurs when Mahmoud embraced Shulamit with a sense of sympathy, while the second event when the characters Shulamit and Simon dance together. In fact,

639 “Rita and the Rifle”. Darwish, “Rita wa al-bunduqiyya”, in Dīwān Maḥmūd Darwīsh al-mujallad al-awwal, pp. 307-308. in Dīwān Maḥmūd ,”’ۥA Soldier Dreams of White Lilies”. Darwish, “Jundī yaḥlum bil zanābiq al-bayḍā“ 640 Darwīsh al-mujallad al-awwal, pp. 311-312. 641 It is my translation. 642 “Writing in the Light of the Rifle”. Darwish, “Kitāba ala̔ ḍaw’ bunduqiyya”, in Dīwān Maḥmūd Darwīsh (1), pp. 536-541. 643 Ibid.

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Darwish makes the dialogue between Mahmoud and Shulamit in order to cite the story of national memory of the Israeli and Palestinian people as one nation. He writes, ‘She was by herself at the bar, no one knowing her but guilt. Simon came inviting her to dance, so she accepted. He was a handsome soldier. He used to protect her from loneliness at the bar, and from old love and from denial of her nationalism’.644

Fadl explores what Darwish articulates about the notion of the battle of memories which occurs between two cultures (Hebrew-Arabic) through this context.645 In short, Darwish uses the dramatic structure in order to represent the Palestinian cultural memory which he associates with other groups that include Palestinian and Israeli community as unity and makes a close relationship between the two ethnic groups, who live in their shared homeland.

Therefore, he creates a counter-memory in order to configure his cultural memory and identity that contains Israeli-Hebrew and Palestinian-Arab identifications. In addition, these images and symbols such as ‘All our nationalism is a banana peel, Ramla was a paradise for him and the dance used to entice her to melt into the rhythm’646 shape the poet’s new memory and cultural identity, namely, these phrases ‘Ramla was a paradise for him... it was hell’ and

‘our nationalism is banana peel’ imply the ambivalence of his cultural identity.

Combining Nora’s theory of the ‘new memory’ and Assmann’s theory of ‘cultural memory’ to examine Darwish’s work post-Naksa, the transformation of collective memory from the past to the present can be explained based on the contemporary context and new circumstances caused by Darwish’s displacement from his second homeland (Beirut) after

Palestine in 1982. Najat Rahman explored the impact of the 1982 Siege of Beirut on

Darwish’s work, which moved from a nationalist view to an assimilation of international and heritage cultures. Darwish’s work also explores the concept of ‘home’ as symbol of collective

644 Darwish, pp. 536-541. 645 Fadl, Asālīb al shi‛riyah al-muʽāṣira, pp. 151-155. 646 Darwish, pp. 536-541.

172 memory, and how ‘home is no longer constituted by land or people but by the possibility of a poetic gathering of voices’.647 The use of dramatic structure in Darwish’s work after the 1982

Siege of Beirut uses polyphony, including his voice with others in order to configure the cultural memory and anticolonial discourse.

In his lengthy poem madīḥ al-ẓill al-‛ālī,648 which is nearly 70 pages long, Darwish represents the Palestinian memory in textual form by showing the conflict between collective and individual memories caused by the failure of national (Palestinian Arab) identity, and how this has led to the collective identity becoming ingrained in the new memory in critical situations.649 Darwish writes:

سقط القنا ُﻉ The mask has fallen عر ب أﻁاعﻮا ُﺭﻭمهم Because the Arabs allied with the Romans650 عر ب ﻭباعﻮا ﺭﻭحهم And the Arabs sold their soul عر ب .. ﻭضاعﻮا And they lost سقط القناﻉ.So the mask has fallen.651 652

The epic poem begins with ‘The sea of new Aylūl [September]’653 which means Darwish evokes the narrations of cultural memory and the experience of exile for the Palestinian people, as he painfully recollects the events of the 1982 Siege of Beirut and the 1982 Sabra and Shatila Massacre which are regarded to be among the darkest events in Palestinian history when thousands of Palestinians were killed by Israeli and Lebanese military forces.

Darwish references ‘the collaboration of many Lebanese’ citizens who supported Israel’s

647 Rahman, Mahmoud Darwish Exile Poet, pp. 41-46, 53. 648 “Praise of the High Shadow; A Documentary Poem”. 649 Rahman, p. 41. 650 This refers to the allies between the Maronite Lebanese government Israeli occupation against Palestinian people during the the Lebanese Civil War (1975-1990). 651 All the following lines from the poem are my translation. 652 Darwish, “Madīḥ al-ẓill al-‛ālī”, in Al-dīwān: al-aʽmāl al-kāmila 2, p. 349. 653 Ibid., p. 333.

173 expulsion of Palestinians from Lebanon.654 These dramatic events are divisive of the national memory which split the Lebanese and Palestinian communities. He uses ‘we’ when speaking of the Palestinian people, and ‘they’ when referring to the powerless Arabs and Lebanese people. madīḥ al-ẓill al-‛ālī indicates the paralysis of both Arabs and Lebanese.655 Darwish writes,

‘A victim which killed its own victim. And its identity was for me, I call Isaiah: come out from the old books like they did, tight alleyways. Yerushalem (Jerusalem) hangs Palestinian flesh upon the openings of the Old Testament, and claims the victim hasn't changed its skin. Isaiah... lament not rather curse the city so that I may love you twice’.656

This long narrative poem contains some characteristics of the narrative and the dramatic structures in terms of including various events, scenes characters and various voices, and time shifts; between the past, the present and the future, which appear in these words ‘victim killed’, ‘I call Isaiah’, and ‘Isaiah... lament not’. The text is characterised by a use of blended temporalities as well as the incorporation of different genres (poetry, narrative and dramatic discourse). Darwish rewrites the Palestinian national memory and history as he combines two narrative sequences (two stories), the first is the story of Palestinian people that occurs during the 1982 Siege of Beirut including the speaker (Darwish) as he narrates his own experience in

Beirut, and the second story as he talks about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the

Palestinian issue. The narrator of madīḥ al-ẓill al-‛ālī combines the imaginative and historical events in order to express his voice concerning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the

Palestinian issues during the siege. As such, his intensive use of the present and future tense in the text illustrates the continuity of Palestinian suffering and pain and speaks of the

Palestinian contemporary cultural memory and identity.

654 Mattawa, Mahmoud Darwish: The Poet’s Art and His Nation, p. 87. 655 Ibid. 656 Darwish, pp. 361-362.

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The text also explores the image of the Israeli victim as Barghouti does in I Saw Ramallah.

Darwish disputes the other (Israeli) identity that has morphed into colonial brutality, with the image of victimhood transferred to the colonised Palestinian people. The stereotypical image of the Israeli victim has changed and its characteristic (the concept of victimhood) have become the identity of Palestinians instead of the Israelis. Darwish also references Jewish historical narrative and heritage by invoking the Jewish prophet Isaiah in the contemporary context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Darwish asks Isaiah to promote the theme of peace and co-existence between the people of Israel and Palestine. The call on Isaiah shows

Darwish’s ideal of a hybrid culture and his reading of Jewish narratives and symbols in order to emphasise his views.657

Madīḥ al-ẓill al-‛ālī conveys the theme of cultural development in Darwish’s work during exile and confirms his cultural identity’s extension to include Israeli-Jewish culture. He writes,

‘My homeland is a suitcase and my suitcase is my homeland’.658

Darwish articulates in this poem a similar view to Said’s argument in Culture and

Imperialism,659 that cultural identity is not pure because of discourse between Western and

Eastern societies. Said writes:

No one today is purely one thing. Labels like Indian, or woman, or Muslim, or American are not more than starting points. Imperialism consolidated the mixture of cultures and identities on a global scale. But its worst and most paradoxical gift was to allow people to believe that they were only, mainly, exclusively, white, or Black, or Western, or Oriental.660

657 The use of historical and religious symbols in Darwish’s poetry is reviewed in Chapter 2. 658 Darwish, p. 375. 659 E. W. Said, Culture and Imperialism, New York: Vintage Books, 1994. 660 Ibid., p. 336.

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Darwish explains in an interview the relationship between his poem madīḥ al-ẓill al-‛ālī and

‘My homeland is a suitcase, and my suitcase is my homeland’.661 In his early phase, before the 1967 Naksa, the poet writes in his poem yawmīyyāt jurḥ filasṭīnī:662

My homeland is not a suitcase And I’m not a traveller I’m the lover, and the land my beloved.663

Darwish comments that the dialogue relationship between these poems (madīḥ al-ẓill al-‛ālī, and yawmīyāt jurḥ filastīnī) is not as contradictory as it has been thought to be by some critics.664 In fact, his later work, particularly post-Naksa, tends to expand his culture and identity beyond ‘nationalist’ poetry. Ipek Azime Celik has examined his work after the Beirut period (1973 to 1983), which Celik calls the ‘Paris period’. Darwish dismisses ‘the

Zionist/imperialist discourses of purity and claims of private property on the right to delineate memory’665, responding to the Israeli disregard of the right of Palestinian citizens to their land and memory. In light of this, the poet uses multi-voices in his work with the national histories of both Israelis and Palestinians. In other words, Darwish cites the historical narrations from Israeli and Palestinian history that emphasise multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-religious, and multi-national notions of the land (Palestine).666 In short, Darwish’s poetic images in this text are regarded to be as artefacts to represent the Palestinian cultural memory.

661 Maḥmūd Darwīsh aṣdā’ fī Palestine: sīrat ḥayāth Part: 2, 2010, [online video], https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rl5OVRTac6Q, (accessed 2 May 2018). 662 “Diary of A Palestinian Wound”. 663 This poem translated into English by Ben. Bennani, in ‘The Poetry of Mahmoud Darwish’, pp. 87- 96. 664 Maḥmūd Darwīsh aṣdā’ fī Palestine. 665 I. A. Celik, ‘Alternative History, Expanding Identity: Myths Reconsidered in Mahmoud Darwish’s Poetry’, in H. K. Nassar and N. Rahman (ed.), Mahmoud Darwish Exile Poet: Critical Essays. Massachusetts: Olive Branch Press, 2008, pp. 273- 274. 666 Ibid., pp. 290-291.

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Madīḥ al-ẓill al-‛ālī also describes the meeting of leaders who discussed the Israeli invasion of Beirut, by using mockery and minimising the leaders that never seek solutions to end wars.

Despite the power of Israeli colonialism that uses a varied arsenal of weapons and bombs during the war, the colonised Palestinian people are characterised by their internal strength, patience, and resistance.

Samah bin Kharūf explores the following text, which draws the theme of denial of colonialism and morally displaces the coloniser from the homeland,667 although it seems

Darwish emphasises the independence of the Palestinian nation and represents the power of his nation/people who act for resistance. Additionally, the poet shows a paradoxical imagery between the reality of the death situations and these people struggle to survive the war, while they are calm and have the ability to fight against colonial powers. He writes,

‘In a month's time, all kings will meet with all types of kings, from the General to the lieutenant, so that they may study the Jews' danger on God's existence. Now, things are completely calm as they were. Death comes to us with all its weapons: air, land, and sea. An explosion in the city Hiroshima. By ourselves, we listen out for the thunder of rocks, Hiroshima. O Hiroshima, the Arab lover America is the plague, and the plague is America’.668

Darwish recalls the catastrophe of Hiroshima in 1945 towards the end of World War II and presents that fateful day in light of evoking multi-voices by including the history of

Hiroshima and questioning humanity while he never loses his sense of human identity. The similarity between Hiroshima and the 1982 Siege of Beirut is the crime against humanity perpetrated in both events, both involving America and resulting in the deaths of thousands of innocent people. Recalling Hiroshima, according to Muhawi, is considered as a voice that

‘creates a context for an apocalyptic interpretation of Beirut during the siege’.669 This poem

667 S. Kharūf, ‘Al-anā wa al-ākhar fī shi‛r Maḥmūd Darwīsh: qaṣīdat Madīḥ al-ẓill al-‛alī ‘unmūthjan’, majalt jīl al-dirāsāt al-adabiyya wa al-fikriyya, no. 3, 2014, pp. 57-66. 668 Darwish, Al-dīwān: al-aʽmāl al-kāmila 2, p. 359. 669 Muhawi, ‘Introduction’, in Darwish, Memory for Forgetfulness, pp. xvi-xvii.

177 also remembers the 1982 Sabra and Shatila Massacre, another tragic and bloody event where

Darwish calls for judgment and justice for the Palestinian victims from the Israeli perpetrators by representing scenes of the horrors juxtaposed with the innocence of the victims. He writes, ‘Sabra calls... whom its call. All this night is for me, and the night is salt.

The fascist cuts its breast – the night lessens’.670

A number of Arab critics (Hala Nassar, Mohammed Ibrahim Al-Haj Saleh, and Shaker Al-

Nabulsi) have regarded this poem as a ‘lyrical-epic’. However, Mattawa argues that the madīḥ al-ẓil al-‛ālī,671 can be defined as a form of epic poetry because it consists of themes of heroism and also due to its lengths. However, it is criticised for reducing ‘the inclusive narrative and the clarity of purpose, the chronology, and an understanding of conflict’.672

Hence, it seems that this poem is distinguished by the mixture of certain characteristics of epic, narrative, and drama, including the display of hero, reparation of words and phrases, various nations, dialogue and different voices. Although this poem is written in seventy pages, it uses an intensive language which appears in a number of short sentences such as

‘Sabra calls’, the night is salt and ‘the night lessens’ as the catastrophic scenes which occurred during the 1982 Siege of Beirut do not allow him to give additional details. In short, this text uses a new form of poetry and applies various structural patterns which are based on juxtaposing the poem sequence and discourse by using the narrative, epic, and dramatic techniques, which are fused in this text.

670 Darwish, Al-dīwān: al-aʽmāl al-kāmila 2, p. 374. 671 “The Praise of Rising Shadow”. M. Darwish, Al-dīwān: al-aʽmāl al-kāmila 2, Beirut: Riyad Al-Rayys, 2005, pp. 331-392. 672 Mattawa, Mahmoud Darwish: The Poet’s Art and His Nation, p. 88.

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With regard to the concept of cultural memory or as Assmann terms it ‘objectivised culture’, which can be applied on the poem fī yadī ghayma673 that explores the notion of cultural identity/memory in conflictive and dialogic structures Darwish says:

The place was ready for this birth: a hill covered by his ancestor’s basil, with views to the east and west, God’s olive trees rising with the language, March is the most coddled child of the months. March combs its cotton over the almond trees. March offers a feast of mallow in the churchyard. March is the floor of night for the swallow.674

This text describes one of the major features of the homeland by gathering different religions and cultures as a multi-voice. Despite Darwish not referring to a specific name for the land of

Palestine, the place is already known. The symbols of these elements of the landscape –

‘plants’, ‘olive’, ‘almond’, ‘basil’, ’orange’, ‘cardamom’, ‘flower’ – is interrupted by the national identity and memory connected from ancient times within the multiculturalism of the place. Indeed, Darwish uses landscape elements as essential to represent the Palestinian cultural memory. According to Badr, fī yadī ghayma speaks of the Palestinian memory as a collective, maintaining the Palestinian memory and identity to the land to create an anti- colonial discourse by representing the colonised people and their memory.675 Badr also explains the emergence of cultural conflict between the Israeli and Palestinian people, which

673 “A Cloud in my Hand”. 674 Darwish, Unfortunately, It was Paradise, pp. 58-60. 675 Badr, This Week in Palestine.

179 he terms the ‘cultural linguistic existential battlefield as well as the military battle’.676 This cultural linguistic conflict is represented by narrating the counter-memory of the Palestinian memory against Israeli occupation and emphasising the Palestinian collective memory, although Palestinians are displaced and exiled.

Barghouti recollects past childhood and present memories of the Deir Ghassanah, the village where he was born. The transformation of the place is sad, changes to his home called ‘Dar

Ra‛d’ and especially in light of his extended family and the largest family in the village ‘al-

Barghouti’. He highlights his loss of the fig tree at his home and the regret of missing the fig’s tasty fruit, he says: ‘This tree fed our grandfathers and our fathers’677 and all of the village inhabitants ate the fruit, this tree was demolished by his aunt (Umm Talal who replaced the tree with other fruit and vegetables trees and plants). The purchasing of figs in his host country, despite their high cost they do not have the taste of the figs he ate in his village.678 In fact, Barghouti symbolises the figs as a key of Palestinian collective memory.

Darwish’s later works (after the 1987 First Intifada) draw on his self-identity and memory to represent the artefacts of cultural memory in his poems, as Pierre Nora’s argument of the

‘new memory’ is discontinuous with the old memory.679 For example, in Darwish’s poem laylat al-būm:680

There is. here, a present not embraced by the past. When we reached the last of the trees, we knew we were unable to pay attention. And when we returned to the ships, we saw absence piling up its chosen objects and pitching its eternal tent around us. 681

676 Ibid. 677 Barghouti, I Saw Ramallah, p.52. 678 Ibid., pp. 52-65. 679 Nora, ‘Introduction to Realm of Memory’, p. 618. 680 “The Owl’s Night”. 681 Darwish, Unfortunately, It was Paradise, p. 63.

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Darwish writes about the theme of the separation between the old memory of the nation and the new memory due to the impact of the colonial condition on the identity of a colonised people without land and who are unable to express the narrative of their history and memory.

It has created as he says: ‘a present not embraced by the past’.682 He uses delicate natural images such as small trees, mulberry trees and butterflies to evoke the fragility of a self that is not supported by any national history and, is more connected to the contemporary context.

Mena explores that Darwish seeks to configure the frame of an imagined nation ‘that is independent of national borders and outside of linear historical progression in order to erect simultaneously anti-colonial and Post-national agenda’,683 as Darwish aspires to give birth to his cultural identity. Therefore, the poet inscribes the idea of post-national (universal) identity in light of his search for cultural development that crosses the borders of time and space.

This contemporary representation of the colonised nation is viewed as ‘timeless’ (meaning that the present is not connected to the past) because the present in this poem transforms from being in temporal sequence to a lack of ‘progression or change which erases the past’.684

Despite the disconnection that has occurred between the past and the present, the new memory in laylat al-būm expresses a cohesive relationship with the contemporary era in order to give birth to and reconstruct the national memory based on his cultural awareness and through his work. He writes;

‘There is, here, a present not embraced by the past. A silken thread is drawn out of mulberry trees forming letters on the page of night. Only the butterflies cast light upon our boldness in plunging into the pit of strange words. Was that condemned man my father? Perhaps I can handle my life here. Perhaps I can now give birth to myself and choose different letters for my name’.685

682 Ibid. 683 Mena, ‘The Geography of Poetry: Mahmoud Darwish and Postnational identity’, pp. 113-114. 684 Ibid. 685 Darwish, p. 63.

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4.5 Conclusion

This chapter has applied Nora’s concepts of old and new memories on Darwish’s texts which articulate the Palestinian national memory, resistance and his own memory and cultural identity to show the voices of (otherness/Palestinians). Furthermore, this chapter addressed the shift of memory in Darwish’s work post-Naksa and the extension of his cultural identity including Arab-Palestinian collective identity, multiple-cultural identification and post- nationalism. His own individual memories and the national memories integrate to represent the anticolonial discourse against Israeli occupation and hegemony. In doing this, Darwish’s work, particularly his post-Naksa work, applies the dramatic structure to illustrate conflict of characters, and dialogue between different cultures, voices and ideologies. Through the recall of his own memories and the Palestinian collective memories, Darwish overcomes the imperial structures and represents the Palestinian collective memory and the development of his own cultural identity in crossing other cultures and identities.

His poetic creation developed to use epic, drama, and dialogue (the dramatic structure) in poetry in order to display various voices and the conflict between coloniser and colonised people. In fact, Darwish uses the dramatic structures in these poems Rita wa al-bunduqiyya,

madīḥ al-ẓill al-‛ālī and fī yadī ghayma in terms of ,ۥjundi yaḥlum bil zanabiq al-bayḍā describing the conflict between Israeli and Palestinian people as cultural, historical, memorial as well as military conflict.

In addition, the effects of the 1982 Siege of Beirut and the 1982 Sabra and Shatila Massacre, on Darwish’s work clearly appear in his work Memory for Forgetfulness. This text contrasts the battles between his own memory and the (Palestinian) national memory in whether to remember or forget the catastrophic events of the siege, although his desire to recount his memory assembled with the Palestinian memory and history as an act of resilience against

Israeli colonialism. Therefore, his poetic experiences after the Beirut period sought to

182 reconstruct his own identity, his poetic creativity, and his cultural development in order to configure the human identity of the selfhood. His work subscribes to anti-colonial discourse and memory by confirming the ambivalence of colonised culture which is changeable and uncertain. Also, the impact of the 1982 Siege of Beirut on his work led to the development of his cultural identity (multi-cultural identity to include Arab-Palestinian and Israeli-Jewish cultures) which shows more clearly in his poem, madīḥ al-ẓill al-‛ālī, as Darwish uses the dramatic structure by incorporating the characteristics of the narrative and the dramatic structures including different events, scenes, conflict between characters and multitude of voices in order to tell the stories of Palestinian pain and suffering during the tragic scenes/events of the 1982 Siege of Beirut and the 1982 Sabra and Shatila Massacre.

Darwish’s later work that occurs after the 1987 First Intifada, tends to further expand his own cultural identity and reconstruct the national memory/identity in the contemporary context.

For instance, in his poem laylat al-būm, he represents the notion of the disconnection of the old memory of the nation and the new memory caused by the impact of the colonial condition on the identity of (Palestinian) colonised people being without a land (Palestine) and are suppressed to express the narrative of the Palestinian history and memory by Israeli colonialism and hegemony. However, Darwish seeks his own cultural memory/identity to be more connected to the contemporary context and gain autonomy from the past collective memory and identity.

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Chapter Five: The Aesthetic Characteristics of Narrative and Dramatic Language in Darwish’s Poetry: Intertextuality, Heteroglossia and Dialogism

5.1 Introduction

This chapter examines the characteristics of narrative and dramatic structures in the work of

Darwish, which incorporates various elements borrowed from other literary genres including the novel, short story, drama and epic. His post-Naksa work (between 1967 and 1987) was affected by major historical land marks such as the 1967 Naksa, the 1982 Siege of Beirut, and the First Palestinian Intifada in 1987. When combined with the experience of exile, these works have resulted in characteristics which shaped his poetry, his own cultural identity and voice as well as Palestinian individuals’ representation of cultural identity and voices. This has resulted in a number of new themes, styles, and structures. For example, Darwish’s work uses narrative and dramatic structures displaying dialogues, scenes anecdotes and different voices, as well as intertextuality with other religious, historical and literary texts. His work also utilises social heteroglossia (different voices and genres) and has evoked historical figures and myths using his parodic style.

The main argument of this chapter is that Bakhtin’s notion of social heteroglossia in the novel can be something found in Darwish’s poetry especially in the post-Naksa period, which saw him use free verse, and long-prose poems distinguished by their dialogues and a multitude of voices. This phenomenon resulted in the mixing of various genres – narrative, dramatic, epic, poetic – and languages that all fused in one text.

The first part of this chapter will focus on Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of dialogism, as well as his concepts of heteroglossia, intertextuality and discourse. This chapter will then draw on aspects of feminist theory that address the idea of interplay between narrative and lyrics in

184 long poetic form. This interaction between these forms (narrative and lyric) is addressed by feminist theory which examines the speech/voice of the voiceless and marginalisation. It is argued that these aspects of feminist theory are linked to Darwish’s work that speaks of the

Palestinian struggle against Israeli authorities. He tells stories about his people’s struggle to resist and subvert the stories that were told by the dominant Israeli narrative. Additionally, feminist theory, which talks about marginalised groups, is linked to post-colonial studies as they are Hegel’s terms concerned with the conflicts between ‘master and slave’ (i.e.

‘coloniser and colonised’) discourses. The latter part of this chapter will analyse the work of

Darwish post-Naksa, especially his use of narrative and dramatic styles, which are related to

Bakhtin’s ideas of the linguistic dialogue and heteroglossia in the novel, which includes various types of discourses and views. This chapter compares poetic and novelistic discourses in Bakhtin’s works in order to explore to what extent the work of Darwish applies narrative and dramatic elements with their use in his poems, as well as the reasons for mixing between narrative and poetic discourses.

5.2 Dialogism in the Novel and the Comparison between Poetic and Novelistic

Discourses

This section will firstly examine the characteristics of discourse in the novel, which will be compared to the characteristics of discourse in poetry using Bakhtin’s theory. This discussion will highlight Bakhtin’s concepts of dialogism, heteroglossia, and chronotope in the wider framework of his argument that the novel represents various social languages and mixtures of genres. I will go on to discuss aspects of feminist theory that explore the notion of interaction between the narrative and lyric in feminist long poems. Susan Stanford Friedman’s account of the interaction between narrative/prose discourse and poetic discourse in feminist long

185 poems will be applied. These poems have led to the creation of a complex and altogether different interplay between poetry and narrative/prose by producing new forms, languages, and speech (the female-discourse). The feminist discourse represents the complexity and diversity of women experiences, according to Wendy Brown that ‘we [women] are not simply oppressed but produced through these discourses, a production that is historically complex, contingent and occurs through formations that do not honour analytically distinct identity categories’.686 Due to the fact that it is impossible to put the female discourse into one form/category (gender, class, race. etc.), there are different forms and discourses that occur in female discourse.687

In his essay, ‘Discourse in the Novel’,688 Mikhail Bakhtin’s primary argument is that the novel is based on social languages and views by representing various forms of speech and different voices. Bakhtin defines the novel as follows:

A phenomenon multiform in style and variform in speech and voice. In it the investigator is confronted with several heterogeneous stylistic unities, often located on different linguistic levels and subject to different stylistic controls. 689

Bakhtin refers here to the main features of novelistic style and the connection between prose work and social groups, in light of the fact that novels express various kinds of literary and non-literary speech and voices. Bakhtin refers to this as ‘heterogeneous stylistic unities’ and he regards the novel as a social phenomenon.690 According to him, these major characteristics

(i.e. different languages and forms) of heteroglot novels are divided into three points;691 firstly, the novel’s style is distinguished through its use of different narrative voices. Second,

686 W. Brown, ‘The Impossibility of Women’s Studies’, Difference: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies, vol. 9, no. 3, 1997, p. 87. 687 Ibid. 688 M. Bakhtin, ‘Discourse in the Novel’, in M. Holquist (ed.), The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays, trans. C. Emerson and M. Holquist, 7th end, Texas: The University of Texas Press, 1990, pp. 259-422. 689 Ibid., p. 261. 690 Ibid., pp. 259-261. 691 Ibid., p. 262.

186 the novel is characterised by using multiple literary techniques; it uses extra-diegetic authorial speech to make moral, philosophical, scientific statements, etc…and finally, we have the personalised speech that is articulated by the novel’s characters.

These features of heteroglossia in the novel lead to the diversity of social languages/utterances and voices in varying styles (e.g. using high and low registers of language). The different kinds of social speech and individual voices/languages that the novels contain include a mixture of languages, poetic images, symbols, dramatic elements, points of view, dialogues between characters, plots and styles.

Bakhtin also differentiates between poetic and novelistic discourses. First and foremost, the image/word in poetry represents metaphorical language. It delves into the wealth and multiple connecting meanings and the poetic language cannot exceed the border because its contextual situation is unable to represent various social languages.692 In prose, images are regarded as social representation of different languages (i.e. social heteroglossia), multiplicity of its names, definitions and value judgements, as prose writing contains various social voices and consciousness that talk about one topic in which these different languages of image/ word are regarded to be mixed together to represent the form of social dialogues.693

Another difference between poetic discourse and novelistic discourse is that the former is distinguished based on romantic view of poetry as personal expression and emotions and cannot convey other social voices and languages. However, prose discourse, particularly in novels, contrasts various belief systems in terms of representing different social ideologies and layers of meaning and language as the characters/speakers of the novel articulate in autonomy and are able to express various voices of individuals similar to the social dialogues

692 Ibid., p. 278. 693 Ibid.

187 that occur in daily life speech/utterance.694 Both poetic and narrative discourses can represent social heteroglossia (different voices and ideologies).

However, these positive characteristics (i.e. their displaying different social languages and ideologies) can be found in both poetic and prose discourses as in the case of Darwish’s poetry because he aims to form a relationship between his discourse and other social languages and views to create new meanings in contemporary contexts. The idea of mixing social languages and literary genres into one form is termed by Bakhtin as professional stratification.695 This appears in madīḥ al-ẓill al-‛ālī, which displays various social languages and speech, including that of religion, the politician, and the intellectual/poet. This poem also contains various genres, which Darwish uses alongside dramatic elements incorporated into the poetic discourse through anecdotes, dialogues, social languages, and religious and mythic symbols.

Bakhtin defines the concept of the ‘chronotope’ which refers to the use of social language across timeframes (i.e. past and present language) as he draws a link between a word and its spatio-temporal meanings (i.e. what Bakhtin refers to as ‘chronotope’)696 in social groups.

Thus, the discourse in novels is characterised by its presenting different social and cultural eras. The dialogism of social language occurs when a word has different meanings based on different spatial and temporal conditions. This dialogism leads to dialogically coexist or oppose the relation between the languages’ eras as these languages are considered to convey different thoughts between the past and the present.697

694 Ibid., pp. 282-285, 290. 695 Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination, pp. 288- 294. 696 I addressed in chapter 1 the concept of dialogism and chronotope in Bakhtin’s theory, the term dialogism means the relationship between the self ‘I’ and other and the role of other as a key of dialogic existence. The chronotope is defined as the simultaneousness of time and space; this concept is related to two people in dialogue talking about one event from different positions and views. 697 Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination, p. 291.

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It will be considered that these concepts of dialogism, heteroglossia and intertextuality appropriately highlight the dramatic structure, the various voices, genres and languages in

Darwish’s post-Naksa work.

Another important theory which is related to the use of dramatic and narrative structures is feminist theory concerning the representation of the speeches and voices of women as a resisting marginal group. This will provide a better understanding of the work of Darwish which uses dramatic structure through a combination of poetic, dramatic and narrative-based characteristics. Darwish uses this mixture of components to articulate the voices of the

Palestinian resistance which he regards as a marginal group against the dominant Israeli group.

In her essay ‘Craving Stories: Narrative and Lyric Theory and Poetic Practice’,698 Susan

Stanford Friedman examines the return to narrative in female postmodernist lyric writing.

Friedman has developed the concept of interplay between lyric and narrative in Feminist theory particularly. She examined the theories of three prominent scholars: Roland Barthes,

Julia Kristeva, and Hélène Cixous who addressed lyric and narrative functions in long poems. Friedman also explains the reasons underlying the use of a combination of lyric and narratives form in feminist poems.

She began her article by discussing the arguments of narrative theorists whom she divided into two groups. Some theorists, such as Robert Caserio and Peter Brooks, hold that the function of narrative is to understand reality. Roland Barthes, Julia Kristeva, and Hélène

Cixous argue that avant-grade writing (postmodernist female writing) disrupt the symbolic order of the narrative. They hold that in the 20th century, long poem forms were only used by modernist male poets and never by female writers, but that later on female postmodernist

698 S. S. Friedman, Mappings: Feminism and the Cultural Geographies of Encounter, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998, pp. 181-198.

189 writers sought to integrate lyrical and narrative discourses mainly because female postmodernist poets wanted to create counter-narratives of dominant culture. Barthes,

Kristeva, and Cixous claim that they aimed to do this by using long poems and narratives to represent transgressive discourse. This led to the narration of stories of marginal groups who were suppressed by dominant discourse, in an effort to represent their unheard stories and to preserve their memories of resistance.699

On the basis of these theoretical insights my analysis of Darwish’s poetry will combine narrative and dramatic elements into poetry/long poems, which entails the deconstruction of binaries of modernist separation between poetic and narrative discourses. Therefore, postmodernist texts restore the differences between prose and poetry, and narratives and lyrics.700 There is a loose sliding between opposite literary modes, genres, discourses, and forms, all of which fuse in long prose poems by women.701

Thus, the relationship between lyric and narrative will not be considered here as conflicting.

The idea of conflict is stated by Barthes who believes that lyrics oppose narratives and myths.

Friedman references Kristeva who holds that lyrics and narratives engage in dialogical interplay; in other words, lyrics (e.g. as a discourse of feminism) do not reject narrative (i.e. as a discourse of the symbolic order), but they co-exist to represent a number of voices (i.e. authoritative and non-authoritative) that are resistant to, and want to disrupt, the symbolic order.702 Friedman argues that all of these narrative theorists, including Barthes, Kristeva, and

Cixous, have emphasised that the lyric-narrative poem plays a key role in disrupting the tyrannical language of the current symbolic-social order.

699 Ibid., pp. 228-230. 700 Ibid., pp. 230-231. 701 Ibid. 702 Ibid., pp. 231, 233.

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Friedman’s central argument is that the exploration of the interplay between lyric and narrative in female long poems in order to represent the feminist discourse and identity.

Friedman relies on Kristeva’s book Revolution in Poetic Language,703 where she explains the idea of signifying process in language, particularly poetic language. This signification links to the subject of enunciation (the subject-bearer) and is classified into two connected poles or modes of the post-oedipal subject, namely, semiotic and symbolic. These two modes are in a dialectical relationship to articulate various kinds of discourse and genres including lyric, narrative, drama and myth.704 Kristeva characterises the poetic (particularly poetic mimesis) as transgressing the symbolic/meaning of going ‘further than any classical mimesis — whether theatrical or novelistic — because poetic language/mimesis attacks not only denotation’,705 it also posits the speeches and voices of other marginal groups where the subject-bearer encounters a dominant group and points the subjectivity of other’s meanings and signs. In fact, Kristeva argues that socio-political revolutions and political struggles, which are reflected in feminist writing and long poems, tend to provide different signs through the poetic-semiotic practice. Meanwhile, other forms of literature such as novels, stories and drama contain different restrictions that mainly come from social and political restrictions that discontinue the signifying process.706 Kristeva examines the long prose poem

Maldoror and Poems, written by a well-known French surrealist writer, Isidore Lucien

Ducasse, known by his pen name Comte de Lautréamont. This text represents a dialectical and heterogeneous condition of the two joining sections (Maldoror and Poems) of his text, which is signed by contrasting names the pseudonym (Lautréamont) and the name of his father (Maldoror).707 The signifying process as Kristeva explains in this text, shows ‘double articulation’ of the transformation from narrative to law and makes the dialogical relationship

703 J. Kristeva, Revolution in Poetic Language, trans. M. Waller, New York: Colombia University Press, 1984. 704 Ibid., pp. 21-24. 705 Ibid., pp. 57-68. 706 Ibid., pp. 71, 122-124. 707 Ibid., pp. 217-220.

191 between the semiotic and the symbolic. She comments that there is no biography, nor a single personal reference, to hypostasize or create paranoia in the signifying process that has been brought out’.708 This is so because ‘the pseudonym assigned to Maldoror introduces the negativity or the putting-to-death of the subject, while the name of the father in Poems posits the rupture or boundary within the subject exists but only in that he is absent’.709

In ‘Craving Stories’ Friedman applies Kristeva’s notion of the signifying process to feminist texts to explain the idea of revision of the symbolic order. It is the disruption of the symbolic order that in the revolution of modern poetic language/discourse combines lyric and narrative in these long feminist poems. Friedman explains how Kristeva places these two polarised modalities on the signifying process to produce a multitude of meanings and voices. The lyric is related to the semiotic poetic language and the pre-oedipal/female phase, i.e. the poem’s maternal language against its paternal language. The narrative is connected to the prose discourse and the oedipal, or male, social order.710 In other words, the lyric and poetic discourse is related to the semiotic, i.e. the various meanings of poetic-maternal language, while the narrative/prose discourse is linked to the symbolic (the univocal of paternal law).711

Feminist writing, and in particular long poems, is therefore a mix of lyric and narrative discourses that represent a variety of voices, most importantly those of resistant women.

Friedman concludes her article with the notion that the theme of the transgressive and revolutionary feminist long-prose poems is often not considered to have the feature of lyric discourse in terms of representing the writer’s voice and persona, which eliminates and disrupts the social order associated with narrative. Instead, she believes, the dialogical relationship between lyric and narrative can co-exist whereby the lyric of the long poem

708 Ibid., p. 220. 709 Ibid., pp. 220-221. 710 Friedman, Mappings, p. 231. And see: Kristeva, Revolution in Poetic Language, pp. 27-28. 711 J. Butler, ‘The Body Politics of Julia Kristeva’, Hypatia: French Feminist Philosophy, vol. 3, no. 3, 1989, pp. 104-106. Available from: JSTOR, (accessed 28 March 20019).

192 represents women’s voice and persona and the narrative of the long poem is regarded as essential for women to claim historical and mythical discourse in an attempt to claim their rights and gender identity.712 She also examines the idea of collaborative dialogue between lyric and narrative (semiotic and symbolic) forms in the work of Irena Klepfisz, a Jewish-

Polish poet, in her long poem Keeper and Accounts. Klepfisz depicts her story of the

Holocaust as a ‘Jew who survived the Holocaust by passing as a Polish child, who must now reclaim her Jewish legacy and identity’.713 Furthermore, the long poem uses different incorporating forms and discourses, which are combined in one text. In the part II of Keeper and Accounts, a text titled ‘Work Sonnets with Notes and Monologue’, is divided into three sections: firstly, the poetic/lyrical form, secondly, sketchy note form and finally, prose- dialogue form.714

In fact, the aspects of feminist theory that explain the interplay between narrative and lyrics in female long poems can be applied to Darwish’s long poems. This is because his long poems represent counter-narratives of (Israeli) dominant culture. I will explore how he combines lyric and narrative discourses in his work in order to tell stories of (marginal group)

Palestinian resistant voices and claim Palestinian myth, history and identity.

5.3 The Concepts of Intertextuality and Heteroglossia in the Work of Darwish

This section will investigate the notion of intertextuality and heteroglossia in the work of

Darwish. It will examine how his work created a dialogical relationship and social interaction between the past and the present of social languages to create new meanings, views and forms. The concepts of intertextuality and heteroglossia fundamentally distinguish the work

712 Friedman, Mappings, p. 242. 713 Ibid., pp. 237-242. 714 Ibid., p. 239.

193 of Darwish’s post-Naksa phase, when he integrates different types of historical, classical, literary, and religious texts and figures (including Islamic, Christian, and Jewish) in his poems. For example, the heteroglot text of madīḥ al-ẓill al-‛ālī includes various images of the hero as well as different individual voices of characters/speakers. These voices include those of the fedayee (freedom fighter), politician, poet (Darwish and Hawi), religious characters

(Adam, Isaiah, and Ayyub), and a mythological creature (phoenix). These voices all speak in a dialogical relationship that represents their different voices and ideologies. Although the freedom fighter and politician’s names are not mentioned in the text, they are well known in reference to the Palestinian Fedayeen and Palestinian leader, who worked together for the

Palestinian issue and nation. In this text, these Fedayeen and the Palestinian leader (Arafat) are regarded to be epic heroes serving the Palestinian cause. Darwish writes;

‘How many prophets inside you (Arafat) have made attempts, how much did they suffer in order to arrange their bodies. In vain you try O my father to gain king and kingdom. Go to fight, and climb with me to restore for the stateless spirit its normal life. What do you want while you are our spiritual master, O master of evolving existence? O master of burning coal, and O master of flame’.715

In his analysis of dialogue in the works of Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky, Bakhtin defines the term ‘intertextuality’ in light of the dialogical relationship to other discourses between other forms of literature. These discourses are inserted into the novel in terms of creating a dialogical relationship between these discourses and different forms of consciousness.716 Bakhtin uses the term ‘novelness’ to refer to the novel as distinguished by representing an individual’s development of various forms of consciousness in terms of representing different social languages and voices and based on dialogue which occurs between the writer and others.717 The novel also forms a good education and epistemological privilege, resulting in the production of knowledge and cultural development. However,

715 Darwish, Dīwān Maḥmūd Darwīsh al-mujallad al-thānī, pp. 391-392. 716 M. Holquist, Dialogism: Bakhtin and His World, pp. 83-85. 717 Ibid., p. 75.

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Michael Holquist argues that all forms of literature can breed the idea of novelness, which is a ‘loophole through which we may see a future otherwise obscured by other forms of discourse’.718 Therefore, novelness in literature is to understand through intertextuality when dialogue exists between self and other, or the writer and others, in showing the diversity of cultural views between the author’s literary text and other social discourses.719

The term ‘intertextuality’ was coined by Julia Kristeva, who was influenced by Bakhtin’s ideas of heteroglossia and dialogism. These concepts exist in the novel to represent various voices and a multitude of ideologies when the novelist/writer uses a parodic style,720 by referring them to as ‘the heteroglossia of the novel’. The novelist word creates two utterances that result in two competing languages, meanings, and views. This parodic style shows the opinion of the general public together with the novelist’s own views.721 Kristeva defines the concept of intertextuality as a mosaic which implies a multiplicity of texts:

Any text is constructed as a mosaic of quotations; any text is the absorption and transformation of another [texts]. The notion of intertextuality replaces that of intersubjectivity, and poetic language is read at least double.722

Bakhtin believes that intertextuality is common in the novel genre, characterised by combining various references from other texts and placing them into one text. Intertextuality has also come to mean the ‘enormous variety of discourses used in different periods and by disparate social classes, and the peculiarly charged effect such as a display has on reading in specific social and historical situations’.723 Through this intertextual referencing, dialogism occurs between these different discourses (texts) because they are considered by Bakhtin to

718 Ibid., p. 83. 719 Ibid., pp. 87-88. 720 M. Worton and J. Still (eds.), Intertextuality: Theories and Practices, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1990, pp. 1-5. 721 Ibid., pp. 304-308. 722 J. Kristeva, ‘Word, Dialogue and Novel’, in T. Moi (eds.), The Kristeva Reader, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986, p. 37. 723 Holquist, Dialogism: Bakhtin and His World, p. 88.

195 be interrelated. Intertextuality expands the horizons of the text and subject it to multi-layered, deeper interpretations.

Bakhtin further explains the impact of intertextuality in the novel by claiming that the notion of singularity and authority produced from the power of these other discourses is integrated in the novelistic discourse.724 However, Kristeva argues that intertextuality and dialogue not only distinguish novelistic discourse, but they also occur in any form of literature; poetic and prose. She also emphasises that monologues and dialogues can be found in different literary forms, disagreeing with Bakhtin’s ideas that poetry is monologue, describing it as using a single and unitary language, while dialogue characterises and associates with a novelistic discourse that articulates social heteroglossia.725 This results in writers who use parodic style being able to express social heteroglossia views as well as the writer’s own views.

The term ‘heteroglossia’726 is generally defined as the state of a large number of social polyphonic responses and discursive forces that express their views about a specific topic.

Each of these responses should form a certain point or individual view of a mass discursive scale that appears in literary discourse.727 Bakhtin outlines the function of heteroglossia in prose writing as distinguished by its double-voiced discourse, showing various forms of speech and thoughts. According to him, heteroglossia is regarded as other speech that is written in another language in order to shape the discourse of double voices that serves two

(different) intentions articulated by two speakers in which the view of the character is considered to be in opposition to the view of the writer.728 These speakers manifest different ideological thoughts and intentions, as each speaker represents a unique discourse different to that of other speakers and discourses. Bakhtin argues that social languages and heteroglossia

724 Ibid. 725 For further information, see: Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination, pp. 356-367. Also see: Worton and Still, Intertextuality: Theories and Practices, pp. 15-18. 726 Chapter 3 discusses the concept of heteroglossia. 727 Holquist, Dialogism: Bakhtin and His World, pp.69-70. 728 Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination, p. 334.

196 distinguish the novelistic discourse spoken of by persons of different belief systems, while other genres such as poetry and drama only represent the author’s own language and discourse.729

Therefore, the interplay between the discourse of the author and that of the character in prose/novel work creates a social heteroglossia. This should be an objective representation of dialogical ideologies, demonstrated by the speakers (characters) of the novel and their various voices (social languages). As an ideologue, the author ‘must define and try out his ideological positions, who must become both a polemicist and an apologist.’730 This idea of the subjectivity of the novel, which Bakhtin terms ‘individualistic subjectivism’, controls the meaning of the individual speaker’s use of language. Language is thus connected to dialogism, and the dialogue between speakers constitutes the mutuality of differences in displaying various meanings, views, and societies.731 Bakhtin defines this as ‘social language’, the representation of different social and linguistic views of an individual’s dialogical ideologies.732

In the case of the work of Darwish, the concepts of dialogism, heteroglossia and intertextuality (narrative and dramatic structures) are often used in the post-Naksa poetry.

These structures are used through the devices of intertextuality and heteroglossia, resulting in an interrelationship not as radical as Bakhtin, then between Darwish’s texts and discourses.

One of the main aspects of intertextuality in Darwish’s work is that the poet evokes Qur’anic words, verses, and characters. These recur significantly in the texts of Darwish, who dialogistically links the Qur’anic context to contemporary Palestinian reality and issues. In particular, he employs various religious stories and characters such as Adam and Eve, Noah,

729 Ibid., pp. 331-334. 730 Ibid., p. 333. 731 Holquist, Dialogism: Bakhtin and His World, pp. 40-44. 732 Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination, p. 356.

197

Hagar, Ismail, Joseph, Moses and Jesus, which are drawn from the Qur’an. Darwish uses narrative discourse in Qur’anic narration in order to display the dialogue between the

Palestinian people and religious characters. A dialogical relationship is formed between the past and the present to create a social heteroglossia where the feature of the religious narrative enters into poetic discourse. In his book The Lost Memory, written about the 1967 military defeat and the Arab cultural production in its aftermath, Lebanese writer Elias

Khoury argues that the key role of religious memory and narrative is to create a socio-cultural collective unity against foreign invasion (Israeli occupation) in an act of powerful national resistance.733 Additionally, the religious narrative discourse in poetry moves poetry from a personal vision of the self to an objective vision by including other voices. There are very interesting and important points in the religious narrative, which makes it easy for the readers to relate to. Darwish evokes Qur’anic (religious) stories and characters that appear in his texts and situates them in the contemporary context to explain the Palestinian issue and reality. For example, he recalls the story of the Prophet Job in terms of showing his hardship and patience to symbolise the contemporary Palestinian people’s suffering and resistance against Israeli occupation.

The concepts of intertextuality and social heteroglossia can be applied in Darwish’s long poem madīḥ al-ẓill al-‛ālī,734 as discussed in Chapter Four where he uses the characteristics of narrative discourse and dramatic structure by incorporating them into poetic discourse through a display of narration, character conflict, and religious and mythic symbols. It uses the incorporation of different genres (poetry, narrative and dramatic discourse) and combines

733 E. Khoury, Al-dhakira al-mafqūda: dirāsāt naqdiyyah, Beirut: Dār al-ādāb, 2ed edn, 1990, p. 214, cited in I. M. Abu-Sharār, Al-tanāș al-dinī wa al-tārīkhī fī shi‛r Maḥmūd Darwīsh, MSc Thesis, Jāmiʽat al-khalīl, 2007, pp. 96-182. 734 I examined this poem in Chapter 4. Darwish recalls dramatic scenes of death during the events of the 1982 Siege of Beirut and the 1982 Sabra and Shatila Massacre. His work on these events is distinguished by his use of narrative and dramatic structures that appear in this long poem and introduces the conflict between Israeli and Palestinian characters. The narration of these scenes in this text uses a combination of poetic, narrative, and dramatic devices.

198 two stories, namely the story of Palestinian people that occurs during the 1982 Siege of Beirut as well as Darwish’s own experience in Beirut, and the second story is about the Israeli-

Palestinian conflict and the Palestinian issues. The poem juxtaposes the poetic rhythm of qașīdat al-tafʽīlah (free verse poem) and the combination of narrative, dramatic, epic, and poetic elements all in one form. Bakhtin distinguished the discourse of the novel as an articulation of social heteroglossia in terms of the incorporation of various genres.735

However, it is argued that Darwish’s poetry is characterised by the idea of heteroglossia, which is used here to shed new light on his poetry.

In madīḥ al-ẓill al-‛ālī Darwish compares the story of Adam’s departure from heaven to the

Palestinian community’s departure from Beirut in 1983. Darwish links Adam’s human experience and struggle to the Palestinian people’s human identity and conflict in their homeland. The exile faced by Adam (from heaven to earth) is similar to that of the

Palestinians (from their homeland to different countries around the world).736 Darwish writes:

لس َﺖ ﺁﺩ َﻡ كﻲ أقﻮ َﻝ خرج َﺖ من بﻴرﻭت You are not Adam as to say you have منتصراً على الدنﻴا ,left Beirut victorious over this world

ﻭمنهزماً أماﻡ هللا.But defeated in front of God.737 738

This text refers to the story of Adam’s eviction from heaven, viewed as a victory of desire and exploring the idea of sin and defeat. The Palestinians’ departure represents the painful defeat and continuous experience of exile, and is thus viewed as a victory of the Israeli occupation during the 1982 Siege of Beirut and the 1982 Sabra and Shatila Massacre. During these events, the Israeli military and the Lebanese Phalangist militia killed many Palestinians.

Others were forced into exile and relocated to other Arab countries such as Tunisia, Jordan,

735 For further information see: Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination, pp. 287-300. 736 Abu-Sharār, Al-tanāș al-dinī wa al-tārīkhī fī shi‛r Maḥmūd Darwīsh, pp. 25-26. 737 It is my translation. 738 M. Darwish, “Madīḥ al-ẓill al-‛ālī”, in Al-dīwān: al-aʽmāl al-kāmila 2, pp. 331-392.

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Algeria, and Iraq. This text also draws attention to the departure of Yasser Arafat, the then- leader of the PLO. The poet speaks to his leader (Arafat) as a father (‘O my father’)739 in light of Arafat’s political revolution and resistance. Arafat receives Madīḥ (praise) as a symbol and hero of the Palestinian resistance, especially in the aftermath of the 1967 Naksa and during the Beirut period (1973-1983) when Darwish joined the PLO as an executive committee member and was supportive of Arafat and Fatah as symbols of the Palestinian political revolution and resistance for the liberation of the homeland. However, after the 1993 Oslo

Accords740 (signed in 1995) Darwish changed his view on political ideology, he resigned from the PLO where he worked on an executive committee member, and he harshly criticised the Palestinian President, Yasser Arafat, because of the Oslo agreement.

In madīḥ al-ẓill al-‛ālī, the poet represents three conflicting voices and speeches. The first voice is a religious one, representing Adam’s departure from heaven and the call of Isaiah as a symbol of humanity in the Old Testament and the Qur’an as examined in Chapter Four, the idea of peace and co-existence represented in Darwish’s work. In this poem, Darwish calls on

Isaiah as a Jewish prophet and historical figure in the Israeli narrative when exploring cultural assimilation of other cultures. The poet confirms the development of his hybrid cultural identity to include the Israeli-Jewish culture. This text is also distinguished by its confirmation of a multi-ethnic, multi-religious, and multi-national notion of the land

(Palestine). This is significantly different to the image of the contemporary, brutal Israeli occupation. The second voice is political, representing Yasser Arafat, while the third voice is the intellectual and literary voice of the narrator (Darwish). Therefore, the mention of Adam is contextualised in the contemporary Palestinian situation in light of the opposing views between the desires of the politician and those of the poet. The politician aims for sovereignty

739 Ibid., p. 391. 740 Further information: E. W. Said, ‘On Mahmoud Darwish’, Grand Street, no. 48, 1994, p. 113. Available from: JSTOR, (accessed 18 April 2017).

200 and status for the nation, and represents the surrender and defeated voice, while the poet’s

(Darwish) desire and views are tied with poetic and cultural battles, revolution, and liberation in emphasising the notion of Palestinian steadfastness and resistance’s voice. Darwish’s representation of the image of the fedayee/fidā’ī (freedom fighter) hero who devotes himself for self-sacrifice highlights the idea of social and political commitment. The different voices of the politician and the intellectual revolve around the Palestinian question and the essence of resistance Darwish uses social heteroglossia by asking ironic questions of Arafat. He does this to represent the different voices between the politician (Arafat) and the poet. Darwish writes:

‘You [Arafat] are the issue, what do you want? You walk from one myth to yet another prominent myth? What do flags benefit you? Did they shield the city from bomb shells? What do you want? A newspaper? Do you hatch papers regularly and spin/implant seeds? What do you want? Stripes? Does the police know when the small land bears the winds? What do you want? Leadership over the ashes? You are the leader of our souls o master of changing fates’.741

This section explains the politician’s voice as opposed to the poet’s voice because while the politician aims to reach leadership, authority and reputation, the poet attempts to enhance the idea of Palestinian liberation and resistance.

Darwish highlights the significance of continuous revolution as the centre of the Palestinian question. Political, social, and cultural voices are gathered in one target: revolution and liberation from Israeli occupation. The praise of the Palestinian leader and hero (Arafat) in this text also contains the notion of admonishment and the recall of the essence of national struggle and resistance. Darwish utilises the device of antithesis by comparing between these words ‘extended’ and ‘narrow’, and between ‘big’ and ‘small’, to represent contrasting ideas

741 Darwish, Al-dīwān: al-aʽmāl al-kāmila 2, pp. 389- 390.

201 to the political discourse and ideology. He writes, ‘How vast is the revolution. How tight is the journey. How big is the idea. How small is the State’.742

This poem also represents the theme of resurrection through the myth of the phoenix. The phoenix is a large, mythical bird found in ancient Egyptian mythology, which symbolised the notion of immortality and resurrection after death. The phoenix builds a nest from aromatic spices and tree branches, before lighting itself and the nest on fire to create a new phoenix from its ashes. In Greek mythology, the phoenix represents the idea of rebirth after death in the way that the ashes of the phoenix are restored into creating a new phoenix.743 Darwish evokes the ashes of the phoenix to refer to the deaths of many Palestinian people during the massacres of Deir Yassin in 1948, Kafr Qasim in 1956, Tel Al-Za‛tar in 1967, and Sabra and

Shatila in 1982. He uses the phoenix to confirm the resurrection and renewal of the idea of fighting and resistance among Palestinians, despite the loss of their fathers during the massacres. The Palestinian hero (fighter) and the nation continue to resist against Israeli occupation even when Darwish asks who has died to resurrect the Palestinian nation. The death of the singular fighter is transformed into the rebirth of collective national resistance.

Darwish writes: ‘You should appear (O Palestinian body after death) like the ashes of the

‘anqā’ (phoenix) from the devastation’.744 The use of the phoenix myth symbolises conflict between death, resurrection, and resistance in the Palestinian question.

In another example of intertextuality and dialogism in this poem, Darwish recollects the story of his fellow poet, Khalil Hawi, a well-known Lebanese poet and member of the Arab

Tammuz poets group.745 As Darwish references to the life of Hawi when the latter committed

742 Ibid., p. 392. 743 ‘Phoenix’, Encyclopaedia Britannica [website], 2018, https://www.britannica.com/topic/phoenix- mythological-bird, (4 November 2018). 744 Darwish, Dīwān Maḥmūd Darwīsh al-mujallad al-thānī, p. 336. 745 I discussed in Chapter 1 the impact of the 1948 Nakba on Arab and Palestinian writers, particularly the use of the Tammuz myth among Arab poets as the myth represents the idea of sacrifice and the service of social and political commitment.

202 suicide using a rifle after witnessing the catastrophic scenes of the Lebanese Civil War and the Israeli invasion of Beirut in 1982. Darwish writes:

ﻭخلﻴل حاﻭﻱ ال يريد المﻮت، ﺭغماً عنه Khalil Hawi does not want to die against his will يُصغﻲ لمﻮجته الخصﻮصﻴه He listens to his special waves on the radio مﻮ ت ﻭحريه Death and freedom هﻮ ال يريد المﻮت ﺭغ ًم عنه He never wanted to die against his will فلﻴفتح قصﻴدته He opens his poem ﻭيذهﺐ.. And departs قبل أﻥ يُغريه تمﻮ ﺯ، ﻭامرأﺓ، ﻭإيقاﻉ Before Tammuz, a woman and a rhythm lure him

.. ﻭناما.And he slept.746 747

Darwish explains that Hawi desired to die rather than remain alive and be killed by the Israeli invaders. However, the narrator, Darwish, believes that there is significance in being alive to narrate and bear witness to the story of Palestinian struggle and resistance during the 1982

Siege of Beirut and the Sabra and Shatila Massacre. This idea of the narrator’s witnessing of historical events is also mentioned in Darwish’s memoir, Memory for Forgetfulness,748 in recalling Palestinian history and memory.

In his poem al-hudhud,749 Darwish uses the concept of heteroglossia in parodic style in his text to serve new meanings and ideologies. He represents social heteroglossia, which Bakhtin terms ‘social languages’,750 in which two speakers articulate two controversial views. He recites the story of the hoopoe, in an intertextual allusion to the hoopoe’s story in the Qur’an

746 It is my translation. 747 Darwish, Al-dīwān: al-aʽmāl al-kāmila 2, p. 370. 748 I examined this work in chapter 4 in terms of representing the conflict between individual and collective memories as well as act of counter-memory to colonial discourse. 749 “The Hoopoe”. 750 Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination, p. 356.

203 to express new meanings and intentions. Darwish presents a dialogue between the hoopoe

(the guide) and us (the Palestinian people) in representing the journey of multi-exiles.

Darwish writes:

I am a hoopoe, said the guide, and I will find my way to the spring when the plants wither. We said: We are not birds. He said: You will not reach him. All are his. All are in him, and all are his manifestations. Seek him to find him in himself. He is within himself. We said: We are not birds able to fly. He said: My wings are time. Love is the fire of love, so catch fire to free yourself from the body of place. We asked: Have you returned from Sheba to take us to a new Sheba? 751

This text illustrates the notion of flying as ambiguous. While the human cannot fly, the text metaphorically links this to the positive characteristic of Palestinian exile and the crossing between different cultures and developing self-awareness.752 Darwish emphasises Palestinian identity using the symbol of the olive tree: ‘But, among us there is a hoopoe who dictates his letters to the olive tree of exile’.753 Therefore, both the Palestinian character and Adam are distinguished by integrating various languages and ideologies caused by manfā hiya al-afkār

(ideas as a place of exile).754 Darwish writes: ‘What is behind the boundary? He taught Adam all the names, so that the great mystery could reveal our journey to the mysterious. People are birds unable to fly’.755 Darwish uses social heteroglossia by using a quote from the Qur’an756 as another speech that he inserts intertextually into the text. This is done in order to make a dialogical relationship between his poem and the myth and the Qur’an; the hoopoe metaphorically symbolises the image of the Palestinian people who fly as the hoopoe does, assimilating into various nations, cultures, and identities. The hoopoe symbol is also

751 Darwish, ‘The hoopoe’, in Unfortunately, It was Paradise, p. 33. 752 I examined in Chapter 3 the concept of cultural identity in exile and diaspora, particularly the idea of cultural ambivalence which was presented by Homi K. Bhabha and applied in the work of Darwish in showing the assimilation of various cultural identities by Palestinians as well as the poet. 753 Darwish, Unfortunately, It was Paradise, p. 31. 754 Ibid., p. 43. 755 Ibid., p. 34. 756 In reference to the Qur’anic verse ‘He taught Adam all the names [of things]’. The Qur’an, trans. M. A S. Abdel Haleem, New York: Oxford University Press, 2015, p. 7. Available from: Dawsonera, (accessed 13 November 2018).

204 deployed as being involved in the Palestinians’ exile and diaspora, as Darwish writes, ‘Have you [the hoopoe] returned from Sheba to take us to a new Sheba?’757

Darwish draws the intertextual figure (the myth of the hoopoe) from the Qur’an where the bird plays the important role of a ‘marsūl’ (message-bearer) who were employed for communicating and transporting the messages from the Queen of Sheba (Balqīs) to the

Prophet (the king) Solomon. The hoopoe is also characterised by observation, guide and expression like a human being. In the Qur’an, Solomon inspected the birds and said, ‘Why do

I not see the hoopoe? 21 I will punish him severely, or kill him, unless he brings me a convincing excuse for his absence’ 22 But the hoopoe did not stay away long: he came and said, ‘I have learned something you did not know: I come to you from Sheba with firm news’.758

In addition, in al-hudhud, I explore Bakhtin’s chronotope when Darwish presents various social and cultural phases that occur in different periods (in the past and in the present) in order to create a dialogical relationship between them. Darwish writes:

‘We said: Did Al-Maʽarri gaze upon the valley of knowledge? He [the hoopoe] said: His path was futile. And Ibn Sina [Avicenna], we asked, did he answer the question? Did he see you? He said: I see with the heart, not with philosophy. Are you a Sufi, then? We asked. He answered: I am a hoopoe. I want nothing. I want only to have no want’.759

This text shows four competing speakers (voices), including Al-Maʽarri,760 Ibn Sina

(Avicenna),761 the Sufi voice, and the hoopoe/writer’s voice. All of these voices are dialogised with each other, revolving around the plot of traveling from one place to another in

757 Darwish, p. 33. 758 The Qur’an, p. 240. 759 Darwish, Unfortunately, It was Paradise, pp. 40-41. 760 Abu Al-Alā’ Ahmad Ibn Abdullah Ibn Suleiman Al-tanwkhī Al-Maʽarri, a well-known philosopher, poet and writer in the Abbasid period. 761 Abu Ali Al-Husayn Ibn Abdullah Ibn Sina (Avicenna), a famous physician, philosopher, thinker and writer in the Abbasid period.

205 exile. This travel is caused by different reasons and visions, including the knowledgeable (Al-

Maʽarri), the philosopher (Ibn Sina), and the Sufi vision. The latter expresses moral and spiritual travel and the unity between the Sufi lover and God.762 These different voices that include the voice of the Abbasid poet and philosopher (Al-Maʽarri), the voice of the scholar and intellectual (Ibn Sina) and the voice of the Sufi, all of them show the diversity of cultural identity and individuals’ awareness. Darwish evokes Al-Maʽarri’s voice as it is unique as a symbol of rebellion, revolution and negation of the rigid (traditional) identity and society.

Bakhtin argues that social heteroglossia distinguishes the discourse of the novel/prose work based on parodic stylisation which defines as a device of social heteroglossia in the novel when the writer displays both the common view and the writer’s view. Other speech appears in the novelistic/prose discourse in italicized form, which led Bakhtin to coin the term ‘hybrid construction’ to represent two competing speakers and differing ideological views that incorporate into one discourse.763 Darwish also uses an ironic style to represent the conflict between the general collective voice and his voice in his poem al-jisr.764 Illustrating the illegal return of displaced Palestinian people to the homeland, this poem shows various voices the sheikh, his daughter, and that of the narrator. Darwish writes:

قاﻝ الشﻴخ منتشاً: ﻭكم من منزﻝ فﻲ The sheikh, refreshed, said: O how many األﺭﺽ يألفه الفتى a house in the world does a young man get accustomed to? قالﺖ: ﻭلكن المناﺯﻝ يا أبﻲ أﻁالﻝ! She [the daughter of the sheikh] said: but the houses, O my father, are ruins فأجاب: تبنﻴها يداﻥ.. He [the father] said they [houses] will be built by the hands ﻭلم يتم حديثه، إﺫ صاﺡ صﻮت فﻲ He did not finish his sentence, when a الطريق: تعالﻮا! ﻭتلته ﻁقطقة ’!voice from the road shouted ‘come on البناﺩﻕ.. followed by the rattles of guns

762 J. Ḥamdāwī, ‘Al-tașawwuf al-islāmī wa mrāḥiluh’, Dīwān al-ʽarab, 4 August 2007, http://www.diwanalarab.com/spip.php?article9994, (accessed 13 November 2018). 763 Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination, pp. 303-311. 764 “The Bridge”.

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لن يمر العائدﻭﻥ The returners will not pass حرﺱ الحدﻭﺩ مراب ط because a border patrol is on duty يحمﻲ الحدﻭﺩ من الحنﻴن To protect the borders from nostalgia )أمر بإﻁالﻕ الرصاﺹ على الذﻱ Orders were set to shoot those who cross) يجتاﺯ هذا الجسر. هذا الجسر the bridge. This bridge is a guillotine for مقصلةُ الذﻱ ﺭفض التسﻮﻝ تحﺖ anyone who rejected help from the United ﻅل ﻭكالة الغﻮث الجديدﻩ. ﻭالمﻮت Nations Relief. Free death under بالمجاﻥ تحﺖ الذﻝ ﻭاألمطاﺭ، من humiliation and rain: those who reject it يرفضه يقتل عند هذا الجسر، هذا will be killed on the bridge. This bridge is الجسر مقصلة الذﻱ ما ﺯاﻝ يحلم a guillotine for anyone who still dreams بالﻮﻁن(.of the homeland).765 766

This text explains the desire of the Palestinian people to return to their homeland, despite facing death. Darwish uses the dramatic structure by displaying social heteroglossia (different voices) and dialogue between the sheikh and his daughter, as well as the voice of the second narrator. The main character (the sheikh) represents his view of a strong desire to return to the homeland (Palestine) through the bridge. As the bridge (known as the King Hussein

Bridge, the Allenby Bridge, or the Karameh Bridge as Palestinians called it subsequently) which links the West Bank and Jordan and is controlled by the Israeli authorities.

Furthermore, the Karameh Bridge refers to the 1968 battle of Karameh which took place in the Jordanian town called Karameh, between the Israeli forces, the Jordanian armed forces, and the fighters of the PLO. The end of the battle resulted in the PLO military victory and the subsequent emergence and growth of its political identity.767 This bridge is also important for Palestinian people as social, cultural and political lifeline and its ties to Arab countries. The sheikh quotes a well-known poetic verse, in an intertextual allusion to the

Abbasid poet Abu Tammam768 who writes:

765 This translation is my own. 766 Darwish, “Al-jisr”, in Dīwān Maḥmūd Darwīsh (1), p. 565. 767 W. A. Terrill, ‘The Political Mythology of the Battle of Karameh’. Middle East Journal, vol. 55, no. 1, 2001, pp. 91–111. Available from: JSTOR, (accessed 10 October 2019). 768 (Habib Ibn Aws Al-ṭā’ī who is a well-known poet in the Abbasid period).

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كم منزﻝ فﻲ األﺭﺽ يألفه الفتى ﻭحنﻴنه أبداً ألﻭﻝ منزﻝ769 O how many a house does a young man become accustomed to, but his yearning is evermore for the first house.770

On example of intertextuality appears as Darwish quoted the first part of the verse and inserted it into his text, as the second part is well known to any Arab reader. Heteroglossia and dialogism appear in the text because the voice of the father is different to that of the narrator and because Abu Tammam’s voice is in the text. The father/sheikh speaks of his desire to return to the homeland and fight, while the second voice (the narrator) expresses discouragement from returning to the land due to the risk of death. The objectivity of the author represents the views of his individual characters and narrators who talk about the desire and rejection of return from the perspective of two opposite speakers who converse about the idea of return. The text shows the narrator’s dislike towards the view of the writer

(Darwish), who emphasises his commitment and steadfastness to Palestinian resistance and rebellion against the Israeli occupation. Bakhtin explains the position of the writer as distinguished from that of the narrator, as the latter’s voice is considered as another speech:

The author manifests himself and his point of view not only in his effect on the narrator, on his speech and his language (which are to one or another extent objectivised), but also in his effect on the subject of the story − as a point of view that differs from the point of view of the narrator. Behind the narrator’s story we read a second story, the author’s story; he is the one who tells us how the narrator tells stories, and also tells us about the narrator himself.771

This passage illustrates that the notion of heteroglossia (different voices) appears in literary texts that objectively represent various speeches, highlighting that the poet should be a neutral third party and that the narrator’s view encounters the writer’s/poet’s view as

769 Ḥ. Aws, Dīwān Abī Tammam Al-ṭā’ī, Beirut: Al-maṭbʽah al-adabiyyah, 1886, p. 457. 770 It is my translation. 771 Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination, pp. 313-314.

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Darwish’s work that occurs after the 1967 Naksa is characterised by the idea of Palestinian independent armed resistance.

To sum up this part, it is argued that the works of Darwish post-Naksa are characterised by their use of intertextuality heteroglossia (social voices). This is best seen in his long poem madīḥ al-ẓill al-‛ālī, in which he evokes the Qur’anic narrative of the story of Adam’s departure from heaven, and which is linked to the contemporary Palestinian reality and the expulsion of the Palestinian people from Beirut in 1983. This poem, distinguished by its use of intertextuality and social heteroglossia, in containing references to intertextual figures and different voices: the religious (Adam’s departure from heaven and the call of Isaiah), the political (Arafat’s departure from Beirut and the retreat of the PLO),772 and the intellectual

(Darwish as a witness of Palestinian resistance). Darwish pays much attention to the idea of

Palestinians continuing their revolution and resistance, in opposition to the voice of another poet (Hawi) who had embraced the surrender of the Palestinian people.

In his poem al-hudhud Darwish recalls again the story of the hoopoe – which originates from the Qur’an – as another speech that is included in his discourse. This story represents the

Palestinian people compared to the hoopoe in their movement and migration, crossing cultures and assimilating with a number of different identities caused by their exile. In another poem, al-jisr, Darwish uses parody to represent another discourse by employing a classical literary text, which he fuses into his discourse to display the competence of different voices (the sheikh, his daughter, and the narrator) and intertextuality (as he quotes Abu

Tammam’s verse). Bakhtin terms this ‘hybrid construction’, one that speaks the contemporary social language and in which a character’s voice is in conflict with that of the narrator’s voice. The collective voice is opposed to the writer’s voice because the writer

772 I discussed in chapter 3 the impact of the departure of Palestinian (the PLO) leaders from Beirut in 1982 on Palestinian people who lived in refugee camps in Lebanon and became without political support and have not ability to demand for their rights.

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(Darwish) attempts to be objective; his point of view of returning to the homeland is not the same as the narrator’s view as the latter discourages the idea of returning to the homeland in terms of facing danger (combat weapons) and death.

Darwish’s poems therefore create dialogical relationships based on different times and places, between the past and the present, leading to a social heteroglossia. In other words, Darwish represents in these texts different voices and ideologies (social heteroglossia) and incorporates various forms of speech. The poetic discourse is mixed with other genres – the novel, drama and epic – all of which fuse into one form and result in what can be described as a narrative and dramatic structure.

5.4 The Formulation of Myths and Historical Symbols in Darwish’s Work

Following on from the previous discussion, this section will apply Barthes’s idea of contemporary myth in analysing the work of Darwish who uses mythological language in order to signify the resistance of the colonised (Palestinian) people against Israeli colonial authority. This section will also examine the use of narrative and dramatic structures in the work of Darwish by referring to Bakhtin’s concept of heteroglossia and the fusion of different genres in one text.

In addition, it will apply Friedman’s theory of the interplay between lyric and narrative discourse in feminist long poems in order to analyse the marginal voices of resistance articulated by Darwish in his long poems. Friedman argues that the narrative discourse in feminist long poems represents the claims of feminist historical and mythical discourses, consisting of re-visioning or mythmaking, and reclaiming a mythical discourse.773

773 Ibid.

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In ‘Myth Today’,774 Ronald Barthes explains his view of myth that is linked to Friedman’s argument of the function of narrative (mythological language) in female long poems, which disrupts the social order. Barthes therefore suggests a new form of literary discourse that has the ability to oppose classical literature and refuse the mythical system. In other words, traditional literary language includes significant literary discourse, in which the signifier is the discourse, and the signified is the idea of literature.775 The definition of artificial myth according to Barthes is to ‘signify the resistance which is brought to bear against it, truth to tell, the best weapon against myth is perhaps to mythify it in turn, and to produce artificial myth: myth robs language of something’776 against the ‘false nature of traditional literary language’.777 The author of literature aims to produce revolutionary language in order to retrieve myth through a semiological reconstruction of signs. After the revolutionary political idea transformed to represent the left, it became the left-wing myth in order to articulate the myth of the oppressed/colonised people.778 This myth plays a key role in countering the myth of colonial authority as the ideal authority over society, which Barthes describes as a

‘fabricated quality of colonialism.’779

Barthes differentiates between the object, or revolutionary, language, and the metalanguage/ the myth. The former refers to the use of real/logical language, while the latter refers to the use of symbolic language in literature.780 However, mythological language is characterised by the use of metalanguage, which Barthes terms as a ‘second-order language’.781 This is typified by the methodologist wearing a mask to speak in left-wing political language using

774 R. Barthes, ‘Myth Today’, in Methodologies, trans. A. Lavers, London: Vintage, 2009, pp. 131-187. 775 Ibid., pp. 159-161. 776 Ibid., p. 161. 777 Ibid., p. 160. 778 Ibid., pp. 173-175. 779 Ibid., p. 169. 780 R. Barthes, ‘Literature and Metalanguage’, in Critical Essays, trans. R. Howard, Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1972, pp. 99-100. 781 Barthes, Methodologies, p. 173.

211 myth and metalanguage to justify a political notion,782 as in Darwish’s work that uses myth to represent the voices of the Palestinian nation and resistance.

The work of Darwish after the First Intifada in 1987 is largely distinguished by his use of myths and history to speak of the Palestinian nation’s displacement and powerlessness caused by Israeli occupation.783 The increasing use of epic poems by Darwish784 after 1987 to reclaim historical and mythical narrations combines the two forms of discourse to create a new kind of myth that recites the narrative of the colonised people in opposition to the myth of their colonisers.

In his poem qaṣīdat al-arḍ,785 Darwish constructs his theme of creating a contemporary myth of the Palestinian nation and its resistance against both Zionist and British colonialists.

Darwish also recollects the 30th anniversary of the Nakba War in ādhār (March) of 1948, which coincided with the Intifada in 1987. The tragedy of the land (Palestine) is described as bloody, wounded, occupied, and martyred; the land is as massacred and martyred as its dispersed people.

In Darwish’s poem qaṣīdat al-arḍ the theme is that of making contemporary myth of the

Palestinian nation and resistance against both Israeli/Zionist and British colonialists. Darwish also recollects the 30th Memorial Day in ādhār (March) of 1977 as the occupation of the land

(Palestine) following the 1948 Nakba which began in 1947. Therefore, he remembers the tragedy of the land (Palestine) as he described bloody, wounded, occupied, martyred map and massacre and the land of martyred and lost people.

782 Ibid,. pp. 184-185. 783 Mattawa, Mahmoud Darwish, pp. 110-111. 784 In Chapters 3 and 4, I addressed Darwish’s use of epic poetry and combination of narrative and dramatic elements into his lyrical long poems in narrating the story of his nation during exile and diaspora. These chapters also explored anti-colonial discourse and memory by displaying different voices of the time. 785 “The Land Poem”.

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التراب. ﺩخلن العناﻕ النهائ ﻲ – ﺁﺫاﺭ يأتﻲ إلى األﺭﺽ يأتﻲ، ﻭمن ﺭقصة الفتﻴات- البنفسج ماﻝ قلﻴ ًال لﻴعبر صﻮت البنات. 786

In March, in the year of the Intifada, the land told us about its bloody secrets. In March, five girls passed through violets and rifles. They stood at the door of the primary school, flamed with native roses and thyme. They began singing the song about the land. They entered the final cuddle –March comes to the land, it comes because of their dancing – the violets slightly inclined to express the voices of girls.787

The myth of the land is signified in this text by highlighting the multifaceted meanings of the word ‘land’. The word ‘land’ in qaṣīdat al-arḍ poem is a signifier not only of the physical surface of the earth but also to other signs, including Palestinian girls, Khadijah (the wife of the Prophet Muhammad), the narrator/writer, the Palestinian homeland, and the fertility and infertility of the land. These signifiers engage in a form of social dialogue with other meanings of the word ‘land’, those from the past and from the present. These meanings dialogically coexist in the phases of different languages and thoughts of different individuals in the past and the present. The various meanings of ‘land’ represent the idea of dialogism in meaning and thought, in different times and refer to the contemporary myth of the Palestinian nation.

Darwish also displays the voices of various characters in this work. The Palestinian homeland

(Jaffa, Jerusalem, Galilee, Haifa, Acre, and Jericho), the Palestinian girls, Khadijah, the protagonist, the narrator, and the Palestinian fighters are all given voices. Darwish introduces the narrative of these voices into his long poem in order to claim the Palestinian myth, history and identity. He emphasises the essence of the Palestinian identity, which is linked to the land

(Palestine) that needs to be liberated and cleared from the occupants. The mythologist

(Darwish) uses the myth (the land) as metalanguage including the images of these innocent

(young) girls, who were killed. He also uses the paradoxical image of the land when violets

786 Darwish, “Qaṣīdat al-arḍ”, in Dīwān Maḥmūd Darwīsh (2), pp. 515-516. 787 This translation is my own.

213 collide with rifles in the scene the girls went to their school. Darwish writes, ‘In March, five girls passed through violets and rifles’.788 Barthes terms this the ‘second-order language’, which transforms the myth789 to express the side of the colonised people. The image of resurrection after death also symbolises the reality of the Palestinian people in the immortality of their resistance against colonial authority and discourse. The text also represents Palestinian symbols such as ‘native roses, ‘thyme’ and the ‘violets’ in order to show the girls’ close relationship to the homeland (Palestine). In short, Darwish signifies the elements of the landscape: the plants, flowers, and horses, to articulate the liberation of the

Palestinian nation and emphasise the struggle of the Palestinian people and the maintenance of Palestinian national identity.

Furthermore, qaṣīdat al-arḍ represents the encounter of Palestinian memory with the narrative convention of the dominant colonising society that is the Israeli occupation. This dominant convention excludes Palestinian voices, narratives and identity. The poem, on the other hand, emphasises these facets of the Palestinian people.790 This long lyrical prose poem also interchanges narrative and lyric discourses when revising the narratives of the dominant

Israeli society that is associated with a social symbolic order. Darwish tells the story of a marginal society, Palestinian voices and resistance in the homeland – that affirms Palestinian identity and history. His long poem relies on the lyric discourse that relates to the semiotic system, namely, in the many meanings of the word ‘land’. Friedman argues that the long poems of the marginal culture of feminists are distinguished by their new lyric (poetic)

788 Darwish, p. 515. 789 Barthes, Methodologies, pp. 138, 173. 790 In Chapter 4, I examined the idea of Darwish’s own memory and the collective Palestinian memory collaborating to act against colonialism and the Israeli narrative. Darwish re-shapes his self-identity and the national Palestinian identity that crosses other cultures and identities.

214 sequences that include a mix of structures and languages (poetic narrative and dramatic structures).791

The voice of Khadijah is evoked, a historical and religious voice that dialogises with contemporary Palestinian women. Khadijah’s support for the Prophet Muhammad against his enemies is a symbol of sacrifice and redemption. Palestinian women are symbolised as the granddaughters of Khadijah, using stones to expel the Israeli occupation. Darwish writes:

‘We [Palestinian women] will oust them [the Israeli occupiers] from flowers vase and clothesline. We will oust them to the stone of the long road. We will oust them from the air of Galilee’.792

The diversity of characters in this text demonstrates the multiplicity of heroes, as well as the power of symbols such as the land and national resistance. These heroes are religious, political, intellectual, and poetic. Khadijah represents the extension of the religious/historical hero that becomes a political hero. In the contemporary context, the Palestinian girls and women are the heroes of national resistance. The poet evokes the scenes and events of these heroes in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and claims the right for them to liberate and peacefully live on their land.

Friedman’s feminist theory of the interplay between lyric and narrative discourses can be linked to Darwish’s poem, qaṣīdat al-arḍ which demonstrates a cooperative dialogue between lyric and narrative. It contains six stanzas. The initial section is represented by the narrator (the land), followed by a narrative text that includes different voices: the girls,

Khadijah, the protagonist, the narrator, and the Palestinian people and fighters. This is then followed by lyrical text that represents the voice of the writer. These narratives and lyrics repeat in turn to the sixth stanza, which combines narrative and lyric in one section (the voice of the writer in other voices). These voices are the narratives of the marginal

791 Friedman, Mappings, pp. 234-235. 792 Darwish, Dīwān Maḥmūd Darwīsh (2), p. 516.

215 group/Palestinian peoples’ against those of the other group/ the hegemonic of Israeli occupants. Friedman characterises the narrative of marginal groups as people representing the insistent subjectivity of the ‘other’793 who encounter the narratives of their alterity produced by the dominant society. These marginalised groups must tell alternative stories that chart their exclusion. These stories reconstruct their identities and affirm their agency, however complicit and circumscribed they might be.794

Furthermore, Bakhtin argues that prose/novel work is able to stratify literary work into various languages (heteroglossia), which he terms the ‘stratification of language’,795 or the representation of different social dialects and individual voices. The novel/prose language dialogically speaks of various professions, genres, and personalities.796 Bakhtin points out:

All words [of prose heteroglot form] have the “taste” of a profession, a genre, a tendency, a party, a particular work, a particular person, a generation, an age group, the day and hour. Each word tastes of context and contexts in which it has lived its socially charged life.797

Darwish’s long poem qaṣīdat al-arḍ has the ability to articulate social heteroglossia through its focus on young women. Darwish narrates the story of five young girls who were martyred.

The innocence of these girls and their love and passion towards their land is represented through heteroglossia. This text represents the narrative of a specific age group (the young girls) and their own voices as victims claimed to the injustice of colonial authority. Although this text uses narrative discourse and techniques in its narration, dialogues, and character voices, it displays a dramatic structure by representing narrative and dramatic scenes. The most dramatic scenes are caused by the many wars that have occurred in the land. This is

793 Friedman, Mappings, p. 230. 794 Ibid. 795 Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination, pp. 291-293. 796 Ibid. 797 Ibid., p. 293.

216 used instead of the representation of informative narratives, which would have seen the narrator and characters interact and explain their individual views and experiences.

The idea of representing a double-voiced discourse (heteroglossia) can be applied to this poem which uses double voices in poetic form to represent the combination of authorial voice and other speech, which Bakhtin terms ‘hybrid construction’.798 The speech of the characters is transferred between two types of reported speech: direct, and free indirect, described by

Bakhtin as ‘quasi-direct speech’799, this occurs when two discourses are combined: that of the narrator/author and of the character. Although this appears as the writer’s speech, it is considered the character’s speech both linguistically and grammatically.800 The technique of free indirect speech (quasi-direct speech) formed by the use of third person pronouns and the past tense is considered to be ‘syntactically indistinguishable from the narration’, yet represents the lexical and semantic expressions of the voice of the character.801 Darwish uses quasi-direct speech when he writes ‘They [the five girls] passed through violets and rifles, fell down at the doors of the primary school, the chalks on their fingers like the colour of the birds’.802 He describes the voices of the girls as innocent, their innocence and childhood symbolised by the imagery of birds. The view of the girls is based on the language and speech of the view of the characters that merge with the poet. The symbolic language used incorporates the girls within the landscape as imaginary birds, with further images representing the dancing and singing of the girls. The action of Palestinian women doing housework synchronises the text with the role of resistance that displays in the words ‘flower vase’ and ‘clothesline’ and uses them to expel the Israeli occupiers. Darwish writes, ‘We

798 Ibid., pp. 306, 318. 799 Ibid., p. 320. 800 G. S. Morson and C. Emerson, Mikhail Bakhtin: Creation of Prosaics, California: Stanford University Press, 1990, pp. 169-170. 801 V. Sotirova, ‘Dialogicity in the Representation of Narrative Point of View’, PhD Thesis, The University of Manchester, 2004, p. 24. Available from: ProQuest (Accessed 4 December 2018). 802 Darwish, Dīwān Maḥmūd Darwīsh Mahmoud Darwish (2), p. 517.

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[Palestinian women] will expel those [colonisers/occupiers] from flower vase and clothesline’.803

Another example of quasi-direct speech can be seen embodied in the same poem. Darwish writes,

‘In March, in the year of the Intifada, the land told us about its bloody secrets: five girls were at the door of the primary school and they go through paratroopers. A green verse of poetry emerges.. Green. Five girls at the door of the primary school break like mirrors, mirrors.. These girls are the land’s mirror on the heart. In March, the land burnt its flowers’.804

In this text, Darwish combines the past tense with third-person pronouns and the present tense with third-person pronouns. The past tenses – ‘told us, were, burnt’ – represent the voices of these girls. This voice is associated with that of the narrator, who uses the present tense – ‘break into, emerges, break’ – to speak about past events that have shaped the dramatic present of the Palestinian nation. This nation’s present is one that has seen death, tragedy, and defeat, with many innocent civilians killed during the 1948 Nakba, the 1967

Naksa, and the Black September of 1970.805

It is argued that the long prose poems of Darwish are linked to Friedman’s article ‘Craving

Stories: Narrative and Lyric Theory and Poetic Practice’. Some of Darwish’s poems can be considered to be similar to feminist long poem in their characteristics. These characteristics include narrative and dramatic techniques entered into a poetic-prose form that is based on poetic sequences, lyrical juxtapositions, epic formulations, and progressive ‘liberation’ from thematic and narrative frameworks.806 This means that the main structure is a lyric system, which includes narratives. She also restates what Kristeva mentioned regarding lyrical

803 Ibid., p. 516. 804 Ibid., pp. 292-293. 805 I examined in chapters 1 and 3 the impact of 1948 Nakba, 1967 Naksa defeats and the 1970 Black September on Palestinian case and people in terms pf physical and psychological effects including deaths, injuries, displacement, diaspora, pain, grief, joblessness, poverty, humiliation, and alienation. 806 Friedman, Mappings, pp. 234-235.

218 discourse in long poems as being ‘a transgressive discourse’.807 Darwish speaks of marginal voices (Palestinian voices) against the Israeli authoritative voice (the singular dominant culture and voice). The essential position for him as a marginal writer therefore is to encounter the Israeli dominant social (symbolic) order to represent and re-constitute

Palestinian national narrative and identity by combining lyric and narrative languages/discourses (different voices and genres /social heteroglossia) as well as the semiotic and symbolic dialogically fused in one form.

In his poem, ma’sāt al-narjis wa malhāt al-fiḍḍā,808 Darwish narrates the myth of his people returning to their homeland as a ‘Palestinian epic’.809 By combining two contrasting modes of narratives (tragedy and comedy) into one text, he represents the sense of the Palestinian tragedy through ironic language which shows unreal return of Palestinians which appears in these words; ‘long tunnel, mirrors, legends and simple speech, and the idea of return as both a dream and a reality as the Palestinians in reality never return to the homeland. Darwish writes:

عاﺩﻭا... …They have returned من ﺁخر النفق الطﻮيل إلى مراياهم.. From the end of the long tunnel to ﻭعاﺩﻭا their mirrors… and they returned حﻴن استعاﺩﻭا ِم ل َح إخﻮتهم، فراﺩﻯ أﻭ When they brought back the sanctity جماعات، ﻭعاﺩﻭا of brotherhood, as individuals or groups, and they returned من أساﻁﻴر الدفاﻉ على القالﻉ From the legends of defending castles to simple speech, إلى البسﻴط من الكالﻡ

807 Ibid. 808 “The Narcissus Tragedy- The Silver Comedy”. 809 Baraut, Zaytūnat al-manfā, pp. 68-69. In Chapter 2, I examined the theme of collective (national) symbols in this poem, which combine historical (Canaanite) and contemporary Palestinian identity when describing the return of Darwish’s people to the homeland/Canaan.

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لن يرفعﻮا، من بعدُ، أيديَ ُه م ﻭال ﺭاياتِهم They will not raise, thereafter, their للمعجزات إﺫا أﺭاﺩﻭاhands nor their flags to miracles, if 811 they wished.810

Darwish evokes the images of the desired return through the returner’s happiness and celebration of normal life. These powerful images include ‘tunnel’, ‘mirrors’ and

‘brotherhood’ which are regarded to be meaningful and sacramental for returners in terms of bearing the meanings of the movement from sad (exile) phase to happy (the returning to homeland) phase, reflection of national identity and communication. The returner recalls positive memories from the past in their land, the land (Palestine) of a multitude of prophets.

As Darwish writes:

‘They have returned on the pangs of their fears to the geography of divine miracles to the field of bananas in the land of old features: A mountain on sea, and behind memories are two lakes (Hula and Tiberias lakes), and a coast for prophets, and a street for the scents of lemon’.812

He evokes the symbols of Palestinian identity and the close relationship of the Palestinian people to the homeland by noting the past roots of Palestinian national identity. This identity is one of peasantry, with references in the poem to Palestinian fruits and vegetables (Banana, lemon onions, okra and garlic). Despite this image of a happy return, the poem conveys the significance of hidden celebration (‘a body disappears in marble’, ‘clouds flow from the feathers of pigeons’) to point out the repression of his people. Their joyful return is only an image, a vision, a dream that has not materialised, hence the miracles. The narrator emphasises peaceful Palestinians in exile that have returned to their homeland without

810 This translation is my own. 811 Darwish, “Ma’sāt al-narjis wa mālhāt al-fiḍḍa”, in Al-dīwān: al-aʽmāl al-kāmila 3, p. 221. 812 Ibid., pp. 221-222.

220 entering into conflict with the Israeli people. ‘The land has not become bad’813 after the return of the Palestinians to their land. ‘In all exiled countries they have not become bad’.814

The text recollects the image of occupation throughout ancient Arab history. History is repeated with a different set of heroes and characters. Darwish evokes the voices of Hyksos

(who invaded Egypt in 1720 BC) and the Tatars (part of the Mongol Empire that occupied the

Eastern Arab region in the 12th century). He writes;

‘The winds of horses blew. The winds of Hyksos blew and the Tatars were both masked and exposed. They immortalised their names by shaft or by catapult’.815

These characters are placed in a dialogical relationship with the contemporary Israeli occupation of Palestine. In Bakhtin’s words, this ‘chronotope’ represents various socio- cultural phases.816 Darwish claims to represent the narratives of the discourse of the colonised

Palestinian people as national heroes of resistance in order to subvert the heroism of colonial characters, who are recorded thus in the dominant national (Israeli) history. The story of the

Palestinian people as a marginal group is told alongside their dream of return to the homeland.

Moreover, Darwish moves from comedy to tragedy as this long poem progresses. The beginning of ma’sāt al-narjis wa malhāt al-fiḍḍā contains scenes of a pleasant return to the homeland, one that is full of happiness, celebration, and marriages. Darwish then turns to show an altogether different reality of the tragedy of his people’s never-ending journey of return. He writes;

‘They never have gone and they have not arrived, because their hearts were like almond scattered on the streets. The squares were wider than a sky which did not shelter them. And the sea had forgotten them. And they knew their north from their

813 Ibid., p. 222. 814 Ibid. 815 Ibid. 816 Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination, p. 291.

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south, and they flew memorial doves to their first pinnacles, and they hunt from their martyrs a guiding star which would take them to their forsaken childhood’.817

Nevertheless, they reaffirm their identity and close relationship to the land by referring to

‘mint, bindweeds, and violet’ as essential things for Palestinians to grow in host countries as symbols to remember the homeland. Darwish in the text also portrays the idea of social languages (heteroglossia) by using paradoxical language. He writes of two opposed speakers: the first recites an anecdote of the return of the Palestinian people, while the second represents the denial of the Palestinian people ever returning to their homeland.

The theme of returning to the homeland and its liberation as myth appears in ma’sāt al-narjis wa malhāt al-fiḍḍā through the use of the al-finīq (phoenix).818 This signals the notion of the immortality of the Palestinian resistance and the continuous struggle across Palestinian generations to liberate the homeland from Israeli occupation. However, the idea of return is only imaginary and never appears in reality. Darwish uses the antithetical ṭibāq al-salb to represent paradoxical ideas of return. He writes, ‘Here we are, who would change us? We return and we do not return’.819

Darwish’s epic poem uses the dramatic structure to display dialogue, narration, and the conflict between different heroes and characters. This is done through various voices (social heteroglossia) in order to display the plight of the Palestinian return to the homeland. This odyssey includes various characters: Palestinians, Romans (representing Israelis), Hyksos, and the Tatars, who represent the conflict between coloniser and colonised. He uses the device of theoretical sceneries by linking the story of Jesus and Mary with the contemporary conflict of Palestinian people against Israeli occupation and colonialism. He writes;

817 Darwish, Al-dīwān: al-aʽmāl al-kāmila 3, pp. 223, 237. 818 For more information see: ‘Phoenix ‘, in Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2018, https://www.britannica.com/topic/phoenix-mythological-bird, (4 November 2018). 819 Darwish, Al-dīwān: al-aʽmāl al-kāmila 3, p. 237.

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‘Jesus returned to the dinner as we like, and Mary returned to the dinner within her long braid for covering the Roman’s theatre instead of us’.820

In this long poem, Darwish combines dramatic and narrative structures to tell the story of the mythological return of the Palestinian people, based on a lyric-epic structure throughout the poem. Thus, this long poem breaks and re-configures narrative conventions by combining lyric, epic, and narrative genres into one form. Lyric discourse is associated with the function of epic narrative traditions to represent the national Palestinian voice of heroism and history against the dominant Israeli narrative.

Furthermore, the idea of renewal and representation of Palestinian cultural identity demonstrated in this long poem shows that the reconstruction of the motive of Palestinian culture and identity for individual representation is not necessarily identifiable with the collective national identity. In other words, there is a need to involve the local sense of

Palestinian identity, and the poet represents his desire and personal voice to configure his self-identity. Darwish attempts to shape transnational, universal identities through the use of figures and ideas from Greek culture to form the contemporary Palestinian identity of resistance. Greek figures and epic mythologies such as Ulysses, Heraclitus, and the Trojan

War are reworked for the contemporary context of the Palestinian situation. Darwish emphasises the idea of universal shared history without conflict between nations. He writes,

‘Our history resembles their history (Roman-Greek history) except for the different birds in banners that would unite nations’.821 Moreover, the poem uses the language of delirium and parody to extend the roots of his identity, whereby his ancestors are organically from Rome.

Darwish writes:

ﻭمن أثﻴنا بعد ﺫلك؟ أين نحن اآلﻥ! للرﻭماﻥ أﻥ Who is Athena, then? It is for the يجدﻭا Romans to find

820 Ibid., p. 231. 821 Darwish, Al-dīwān: al-aʽmāl al-kāmila 3, p. 232.

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ﻭجﻮﺩﻱ My existence فﻲ الرخاﻡ، ﻭأﻥ يعﻴدﻭا نقطة الدنﻴا إلى ﺭﻭما، ﻭأﻥ In the marble; and to return the start يلدﻭا of the world to Rome, and to give birth to جدﻭﺩﻱMy ancestors.822 823

Here, Darwish uses what Bakhtin terms ‘double voices’824 to illustrate the voices of two speakers. One speaker displays the Palestinian identity and return to the homeland, while the other (the protagonist) represents the expansion of his identity across different nations and cultures, including his Roman ancestors. This latter voice represents the strong roots of the protagonist’s identity, which are linked to Roman marble and Roman ancestors; marble signifies the solidity and stability of his identity.825

Furthermore, ma’sāt al-narjis wa malhāt al-fiḍḍā represents two contrary views of the hero and the characters (the returners). The ideas of return and non-return are explored through two oppositional voices. The narrator/protagonist is portrayed through the voice of the killed hero who wishes to represent the renewal of his cultural identity and re-shape his self-identity and voice. This is in contrast to the idea of the return of the Palestinian people, representing the collective Palestinian identity of resistance. The second voice is that of ordinary

Palestinian people, portrayed through a desire to return to normal life in their territory.

Darwish writes, ‘Take me to my Eid as a martyr in the violet of martyrs. They returned, but I do not return.’826 The image of martyr which represents the Palestinian fighter as well as the poet (shahīdan) is regarded by Salma Jayyusi as a ‘heroic victim’ because of his limited ability to fight and struggle against political powers.827 Darwish therefore represents social

822 This translation is my own. 823 Ibid., p. 230. 824 Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination, p. 334. 825 In Chapter 4, I addressed the notion of the expansion of national identity and culture in Darwish’s work crossing various nations and cultures. 826 Darwish, Al-dīwān: al-aʽmāl al-kāmila 3, p. 229. 827 Jayyussi, Modern Arabic Literature, p. 176.

224 heteroglossia by narrating the voice of the intellectual professions that shows the desire of these free individuals in opposition to the voices of other characters. The intellectual/poetic hero seeks to re-construct and renew the disrupted Palestinian culture. Mattawa expounds on the idea of the hero as a victim, the end of the national hero caused by the failure of the PLO to confront the Israeli occupation. Mattawa notes that the end of heroism in Darwish’s work is a result of his desire to normalise the features of Palestinian literature in order to become similar to the characteristics and qualities of modern literature.828 The end of heroism in the work of Darwish indicates his desire to represent his individual voice, one that dialogically co-exists with the collective Palestinian voice and represents social heteroglossia.

In short, the interplay between lyric and narrative discourses in his post-Naksa work creates a variety of voices that appear in these texts qaṣīdat al-arḍ and ma’sāt al-narjis wa malhāt al- fiḍḍā. These include the poet’s voice, through his lyric discourse, incorporated with the social voices, through the narrative discourse. These voices are fused in his texts in order to represent different voices and various forms of individual consciousness, or what Bakhtin terms as ‘novelness’.829 Furthermore, the dialogical relationship between lyric and narrative demonstrates the poet’s claim of Palestinian myth, history and identity as well as the development of his cultural identity and discourse.

Conclusion

This chapter has argued that concepts of dialogism, heteroglossia, chronotope and intertextuality that Bakhtin propounded appear in different forms of literature, both prose and poetry, as in the case of the post-Naksa poetry of Darwish. It has explained the characteristics of narrative and dramatic structures in his work display dialogues, scenes, anecdotes, and

828 Mattawa, Mahmoud Darwish, p. 139. 829 Ibid., p. 75.

225 different voices, as well as intertextuality with other religious, historical and literary texts. It has explored his work in terms of representing various voices and intertextuality. This chapter also discussed the application of Friedman’s feminist theory, which explains the idea of the interchange and dialogical relationship between lyric and narrative in women long-prose poems. These characteristics of feminist long poems are related to Darwish’s long poems, which articulate the marginal voices of the Palestinians and configure both Darwish’s self- identity and the Palestinian cultural identity and history.

Furthermore, this chapter focused on the post-Naksa phase that was due to Darwish’s use of varying voices in his poetic and cultural rejuvenation of incorporating lyric poetry into his dramatic and narrative discourse. Darwish’s work includes historical, literary, and religious texts and figures to display social heteroglossia in his long poems. It has illustrated Darwish’s interplay of poetic, narrative, and dramatic characteristics to represent the different voices of the Palestinian nation. The function of using narrative discourse in his work is to allow

Darwish to claim the national identity and history of the marginalised Palestinian group. This is seen in his poem qaṣīdat al-arḍ, which presents the idea of making a contemporary myth of the Palestinian nation in resistance to colonialism.

The idea of social heteroglossia mostly appears in Darwish’s work after the Beirut Period

(1973 to 1983) when he began to express the two voices of conflict that occurred between the political discourse and the poetic/intellectual discourse, for example, his long poem madīḥ al-

ẓill al-‛ālī. This was in addition to the dialogue that existed between the poet’s views that were opposed to the general public’s view. This chapter also explored how Bakhtin’s idea of dialogism in novels is appropriate for analysing Darwish’s works and his use of narrative/prose discourse in his free verse and long-prose poems. This work is distinguished by its use of narrative and dramatic discourses and characteristics that include dialogues of a

226 multitude of voices (the writer, narrator and characters), narration, scenes, myths, and historical characters. The result of this is a mixture of different genres into one text.

Darwish’s work after the First Intifada in 1987 sought to re-construct the Palestinian

(national) identity and his own identity that crosses various nations and cultures. His work represents his use of myth and history for the Palestinian nation using narrative discourse in his long poems to reclaim both mythical and historical narrations and show the different voices of Palestinian identity. In addition, al-hudhud explains different socio-cultural voices that occur in different periods (from the past to the present) in order to represent the variety of (national) cultural identity and individual’s conciseness.

In ma’sāt al-narjis wa malhāt al-fiḍḍā, the continuous variation of Palestinian cultural identity due to constant displacement and exile highlights the development of the identity and culture of the Palestinian people. These are not fixed, and there exists a renewal of self- identity that he emphasises through his personal voice in this text. He thus attempts to configure both the transnational and universal identities reflected in his use of figures from

Greek culture to contextualise and form contemporary Palestinian identity. The use of epic narrative structure, together with the recreation of Greek myths and tragedy, serves to demonstrate the contemporary epic-myth of the Palestinian people and the re-constructing motive of Palestinian culture and identity.

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Chapter Six: Conclusion

The approach to the ‘dramatic structure’ in the poetry of Mahmoud Darwish is generally understood as a form of poetry consisting of distinctive features that are borrowed from other literary genres such as the novel and drama, and are incorporated into another genre, in this case poetry.

The dramatic structure can be seen as a mixture of narrative and dramatic characteristics such as myth, dialogue, scenes, narration and polyphonic voices deployed simultaneously in order to convey various socio-ideological views in an objective way. In the case of Darwish, he has linked his poetry to the historical context of Palestine, and more precisely, to the 1967 Naksa war which has largely affected him. Like many other poets and writers, the Naksa inspired

Darwish to write about new themes, and produce new structures by using the dramatic system. This has allowed him to bring together a plethora of voices, including his own voice, to speak about the stories of the Palestinian resistance.

This study has investigated the use of the dramatic system in Darwish’s work following the

1967 Six-Day War through to the First Intifada in 1987, to explore the transformations of his work post-Naksa, as turning points in Darwish’s poetry. Major historical events that include the 1967 Naksa, the 1982 Siege of Beirut, the 1982 Sabra and Shatila Massacre, and the

1987 First Intifada, as well as his experience of exile and diaspora have influenced his poetic trajectory. when his work after the 1967 Naksa illustrates a new form of writing based on narrative and dramatic elements due to their characteristics of objectivity, as the poet talks about the Palestinian question and resistance, and uses various viewpoints, showing dialogue between characters, scenes and narrative style, which are all fused in one form.

In this thesis, it has been argued that Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of dialogism in the novel, and his other concepts, which include heteroglossia, the chronotope, and intertextuality can be

228 applied to another genre like poetry. In this case, Bakhtin’s aspects of dialogism are appropriate to analyse the poetry of Darwish post-Naksa, which is distinguished by its use of the dramatic structure, including dialogue, multitude of voices and social languages. This study has also applied post-colonial theory to analyse Darwish’s work, focusing on issues such as cultural difference, diaspora, hybridity, and subaltern voices and struggle against colonialism. Furthermore, in order to deeply understand the concept of memory in Darwish’s work, this thesis applied Pierre Nora’s theory, which explains the concepts of old and new memories. Nora’s theory is both significant and appropriate to the analysis Darwish’s poetry that is regarded to be memorial moments and sites of memory. The theory also resonates with the study of the anti-colonial aspect of Darwish’s discourse, which includes Palestinian voices as well as his own voice, as the poet articulates the battle of memory: whether to recall the Palestinian (collective) national memory or discontinue it.

Furthermore, this thesis has examined postcolonial concepts that include displacement, diaspora and exile in Darwish’s work. As the poet experienced displacement and diaspora traveling to different cities that began in Moscow in 1970, then he moved to Cairo in 1971, and culminated with the Beirut (1971 to 1982) and Paris (1983-1995), and how Palestinians’ displacement and diaspora led to the transformation of (Palestinian) national identity and the development of Darwish’s own cultural identity in the diaspora. His experience of exile and diaspora also resulted in the use of the dramatic structure in his post-Naksa work, by using dialogue and a multitude of social voices.

Stuart Hall’s theory of cultural identity which explains the representation of cultural identity in the diaspora through hybridity, difference, resistance and evolving of the cultural identity has also been deployed for the analysis of Darwish’s work. This has been supplemented by the work of Homi K. Bhabha on cultural difference that studies the representation of national identity and ambivalent ideologies in diasporic communities. These theories are fundamental

229 to explore the transformations of cultural identity in Darwish’s work, which shapes a new cultural identity through experiencing cultural hybridity and difference, as well as encountering various cultures because of living in different countries. As a result, these experiences are reflected in his work, which represents complex figures of Palestinian national identity and difference in the diaspora. In addition, it has been argued that the concept of the subaltern, drawn from Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s theory is appropriate to explore Darwish’s work that articulates the Palestinian subaltern voices/anticolonial voices against Israeli occupation. This thesis has explained the function of his use of the dramatic structure in order to represent anti-colonial discourse and resistance.

The use of the dramatic structure appears in Darwish’s work post-Naksa, due to the impact of the 1967 Naksa which is regarded to be the first stage of his use of the dramatic structure in his poem Sirḥan yashrabu al-qahwa fī al-kafiteriya, which was published in 1972 as part of his collection Uḥibbuk aw lā uḥibbuk.. He uses the dramatic structure by staging dialogues between his characters (Israelis and Palestinians) in order to represent the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the impact of the 1967 Naksa that led to Palestinian displacement and diaspora, which in turn is reflected in the representation of Palestinian national identity. It has been argued that the use of the dramatic structure in this poem is essential for him to speak of national narratives, anti-colonial voices and subaltern struggle against Israeli occupation and colonialism. Darwish also uses epic style in order to articulate the Palestinian struggle and resistance. For instance, in his epic poem Aḥmad al-za‛tar, Darwish recalls the story of

Palestinian heroes/Fedayeen (freedom fighters). He also explains the idea of resurrection through the fighter character (Ahmed’s body who is martyred) in order to confirm the

Palestinian continual resistance. The poem explains the notion of self-sacrifice through the protagonist (Ahmed) as a prototype of the Palestinian fighters (Fedayeen) and their resistance to occupation.

230

In his texts Rita wa al-bunduqiyya and jundi yaḥlum bil zanābiq al-bayḍā’, Darwish also uses the dramatic structure by displaying narrative, conflict of characters, events, dialogues and different voices that include both Palestinian and Israeli voices. He represents the

(Palestinian) cultural memory which he associates with other groups’ memories that include the Palestinian and the Israeli communities as unity (one nation), making a close relationship between the two ethnic groups, who live in their shared homeland. He also creates a counter- memory in order to configure his own cultural memory and identity that contains Israeli-

Hebrew and Palestinian-Arab identifications.

The theme of contemporary epic-myth of the Palestinian people in resistance to the discourse of colonialism appears in his poem, qaṣīdat al-arḍ. Darwish explains different meanings of the word ‘land’ that include physical surface of the earth, Palestinian girls, Khadijah (the wife of the Prophet Muhammad), Palestinian women, the narrator/writer, the Palestinian homeland, and the fertility and infertility of the land. Darwish uses the dramatic structure through dialogism and social heteroglossia (various voices and genres) by using his parodic style. This long lyrical prose poem also interchanges narrative and lyric discourses when revising the narratives of the dominant Israeli society that is associated with a social symbolic order. He tells the story of a marginal society, Palestinian voices and resistance in the homeland, which affirms Palestinian identity and history.

Moreover, the impact of the 1982 Siege of Beirut on Darwish’s work has examined. This is considered to be his second stage of using the dramatic structure; where he represents cultural identity and difference in diaspora. The representation of Palestinian cultural identity in the diaspora is portrayed in his prose poem maṭār Athinā, where he explains the story of

Palestinian displacement, which occurs in Athens airport from which his people were scattered to various countries all over the globe. The text uses the dramatic structure for displaying multitude of voices, scenes and dialogues in order to configure cultural identity in

231 the diaspora as a hybrid identity that crosses different other cultures and nations in host countries. This thesis has also made the argument that maṭār Athinā is similar to a short play in terms of using dramatic features such as plot/events, dialogue, different voices, and conflict between characters. In addition, the poem explains the negative effects of Palestinian displacements that include the 1948 Nakba, the 1967 Naksa and the 1982 Siege of Beirut displacements which intensify Palestinian people’s unsettledness and dispersal and worsens their condition as being homeless and jobless.

In his lengthy text madīḥ al-ẓill al-‛ālī, Darwish sought to re-construct his self-identity, his poetic creation and cultural development in order to configure a mixture of identifies, and the human identity of the selfhood. His work contributes to anti-colonial discourse and memory by confirming the ambivalence of colonised culture that is unfixed and uncertain. He also uses the dramatic structure by incorporating the characteristics of the narrative and the dramatic structures including different events, scenes, conflict between characters, heteroglossia (multitude of voices), and intertextuality. The text also explains the two voices of conflict that occurred between the political voice and the poetic/intellectual voice that talk about the leadership of the homeland (Palestine) due to the fact that the politician aims to reach the leadership, authority and reputation while the poet attempts to enhance the idea of

Palestinian liberation and resistance. In fact, madīḥ al-ẓill al-‛ālī represents the concept of heteroglossia through its political, historical, social, and cultural voices discussing Palestinian resistance.

His latest stage of using the dramatic structure emerges after the 1987 First Intifada when he tends to extend his own cultural identity and reconstruct the (Palestinian) national identity through the deployment of myth, memory, and identity in the contemporary context. In his poem laylat al-būm, he represents the idea of the disconnection between the old memory and the new memory of the nation. As he sought to configure his own cultural memory and

232 identity in the contemporary context and the independence from the past collective memory and identity through his work, showing his multiple identities and cultures in crossing the borders of time and space to represent human (universal) identity.

In his poem al-hudhud, Darwish uses the parodic style through intertextuality and different socio-cultural voices. He evokes the story of the hoopoe from the Qur’anic narrative and inserts it into his own discourse. He also uses a dialogue occurring between the hoopoe and the Palestinian people in order to show the idea of flying; although humans cannot fly, his characters (the Palestinian people) fly like the hoopoe and migrate across different cultures and identities. In addition, Darwish calls the voices of historical figures including those of Al-

Maʽarri, Ibn Sina, the Sufi, and the hoopoe/writer into a competing dialogue in which all of these voices are dialogised with each other, showing the variety of cultural identity and individuals’ consciousness.

Furthermore, the impact of the 1987 First Intifada distinguishes his work by renewing his own cultural identity that crosses different nations and cultures. He presents his development of self-identity that appears in his poem ma’sāt al-narjis wa mālhāt al-fiḍḍa. This text uses the dramatic structure displaying dialogue, narration, myth and the conflict between different heroes and characters who represent various social voices, and incorporates variety of genres into one text such as poetic, epic, narrative and the dramatic structure. Furthermore, the text integrates the Greek myths and tragedy into the contemporary Palestinian myth and the rewriting of the Palestinian cultural identity and memory. Darwish configures both the transnational and the universal identities by recalling the Greek mythological figures to contextualise the Palestinian situation and shape the contemporary Palestinian identity that is originally found and linked to its Roman ancestors. The text explains the conflicted voices of two speakers. One speaker shows the Palestinian identity and the desire of returning to the homeland (Palestine), while the other speaker (the protagonist/the poet) demonstrates the

233 expansion of his own identity across various nations and cultures, including his Roman ancestors.

In fact, the interplay between lyric and narrative forms (semiotic and symbolic) in Darwish’s post-Naksa work, leads to the dramatic structure (dialogism, intertextuality and heteroglossia) that appear in these poems qaṣīdat al-arḍ, madīḥ al-ẓill al-‛ālī, al-hudhud and ma’sāt al- narjis wa mālhāt al-fiḍḍa. These include the poet’s voice, incorporated with the social voices to demonstrate different voices and various forms of individual awareness. Moreover, the cooperative dialogue between lyric and narrative discourses in those poems shows the poet’s attempt to claim the Palestinian national myth, history and identity as well as the development of his cultural identity and discourse.

Although this study has examined the use of the dramatic structure in Darwish’s post-Naksa work within a selection of his texts, which contain dramatic and narrative characteristics, there are limitations of analysing all of his works.

The first important limitation of the research is that there are many important poems which are not explored in this thesis because they only contain a single voice and cannot display social heteroglossia (different voices). These texts are also distinguished by displaying

Darwish’s anxiety and self-questioning/self-reflection of his forthcoming death, which are considered to be a key element and a privilege of the style of his late writings and most importantly, they represent his subjectivity. Said writes: ‘[Darwish’s late style] is the artist’s mature subjectivity, stripped of hubris and pomposity, unashamed either of its fallibility or of the modest assurance it has gained as a result of age and exile’.830 Indeed, the power of subjectivity, and anxious determination are considered to be of crucial importance in

Darwish’s latest phase, after the 1987 First Intifada, in particular after his heart surgery in

830 E. Said, ‘Thoughts on Late Style’, London Review of Books, 2004.

234

1998 and onwards, in terms of renewing views, styles and emphasising of his self-identity and are elements that need further investigation.

The second limitation of this study is in exploring the representation of memory in Darwish’s post-Naksa work and the impact of warfare (the 1967 Naksa) on the national memory. Major areas of recalling his own memories were not fully examined including his childhood memories, his memories with his father, his mother, his home and his friends. All of these memories are essential in shaping his own identity and more importantly, they are in need of further exploration.

Finally, a further key limitation of the thesis, which can be investigated in future research is the notion of the comic and humorous narratives and languages that the poet uses in his post-

Naksa work in opposite to the melancholic narratives. When he recalls the stories of

Palestinians in the aftermath of the significant historical events which include the 1967

Naksa, the 1982 Siege of Beirut, the 1982 Sabra and Shatila Massacre, and the 1987 First

Intifada, as well as his exiled experience led to some painful negative effects and grief-filled situations amongst them. Future research could explore how the poet combines both humorous and sad narratives in one text.

235

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