Metaphors Stemming from Nature in the Poetry of Mahmoud Darwish
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Vol.12(2), pp. 15-22, April-June 2021 DOI: 10.5897/IJEL2021.1440 Article Number: 600811A67083 ISSN 2141-2626 Copyright © 2021 International Journal of English and Author(s) retain the copyright of this article http://www.academicjournals.org/IJEL Literature Full Length Research Paper Metaphors stemming from nature in the poetry of Mahmoud Darwish Nawal Al-Sheikh Department of Languages, Faculty of Humanities, Al-Istiqlal University, Palestine. Received 27 April, 2021; Accepted 9 June, 2021 This is a critical paper inspecting metaphors, the most artistic device, in Mahmoud Darwish's poetry. This research classified metaphors into three basic categories: metaphors of trees and plants such as wheat, metaphors of animals and birds such as butterfly, hoopoe, and dove, and metaphors of concrete and abstract natural elements. This study reports the fact that Darwish was brought up in a rural community. His father was a villager who grew crops for being food secure. Consequently, that rural environment affected the poetry of Darwish through metaphors and symbolism. Thus, it can be concluded that these poetic metaphors are a logic outcome of that rural atmosphere. Key words: Metaphor, Mahmoud Darwish, resistance literature, nature. INTRODUCTION Mahmoud Salem Darwish was born in a Palestinian Al-Karmeland magazine in Paris where he explored village in Galilee. Due to the crimes of the occupation, he, several world cultures. In 1984 and 1987, he was with his family, fled to Lebanon in 1948. There, he got the president of the Union of the Palestinian writers and general secondary certificate. Then Darwish moved to journalists. Darwish died in 2008. Haifa where he joined the Israeli Communist party. He Darwish first wrote poems about his homeland. His wrote for the newspaper Al-Ittihad and the magazine Al- poetry was translated into many languages such as Jadid, both owned by that Israeli party. Because he took English and French. He was honored with many part in some political events without an Israeli permit, he international awards. He wrote al-Jidariya, expressing was arrested and imprisoned in 1961, 1965, 1967, and human issues. In addition, he wrote WardAqal which was 1969. After travelling to Moscow and Cairo, he went back "private verse". In these Palestinian poems, Palestinian to Beirut where he became editor-in-chief of a Palestinian people share love, grief, and future expectations with magazine. Then, he became a prominent member in the other world's peoples. Thus, Darwish became the poet of PLO in 1987. After the Oslo Accord, he moved to several the Palestinian Resistance. His poetry contained Arab and foreign countries. He became editor-in-chief of metaphor and symbolism (Nader, 2010 : Introduction). E-mail: [email protected]. Author(s) agree that this article remain permanently open access under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 International License 16 Int. J. English Lit. Therefore, Darwish was a cultural symbol who played an 2. metaphors of mountain, important role in shaping Palestinian culture and 3. metaphors of wind, awareness. He could recharge his language and universal 4. metaphors of light, and topics. His merciless metaphors, lyrically addressing 5. darkness. every corner of Palestine, are an aesthetic re-creation. The main subjects of his poetry are his nation and the The study assigned a conceptual metaphor for each crimes of the Israeli occupation. Therefore, his poetry is classification of metaphors. The study ended up with a viewed as a focal point for many scholars since his poetry key metaphor that related all the conceptual metaphors is governed by cultural and linguistic laws. He also resulted from the analysis of different classifications of employed metaphoric devices written in a globalized these metaphors. world full of conflict. Theoretical framework Study significance A metaphor was defined by Larson (1984) as a figure of The recent study highlighted some metaphors related to speech constructing a comparison of some resemblance. plants, animals, birds, and natural elements and how they Newmark (1988) defined it as the linguistic device used are reflected in the poetry of Mahmoud Darwish, who to give a definition to an entity or an event in a more used metaphors in his writing intensively within a political comprehensive, concise, and complex way than using conflict between the Israeli occupation and the Palestinian the literal language. He explained that metaphors show people. the likeness or a common semantic area between the two parts of the metaphor called the image and the object. The metaphor is based on a cultural narrative. At a Literature review young age, they learn metaphor and rule their minds and their everyday behavior. Lakoff and Johnson (1980) show The researcher reviewed and tackled studies related to that metaphors are merely literary or linguistic ornaments. the topic of this paper. According to MASOOD (2020), But several scientists, Doucherty among others, contend metaphors used in the poetry of Darwish are cultural and that the mechanisms of human thinking are essentially linguistic phenomena. Darwish focused on using metaphorical, and it can only understand anything metaphors related to nature. Darwish transferred through comparison. Their acts and their sense of right Palestine into a poem. MASOOD stated that metaphor is and wrong are formed by metaphors. An effective a type of identity manifestation. Asli (2017) studied the metaphor organizes the universe to define meaningful Palestinian discourse on exile and return through positions and acts that are prohibited or not conceivable exploring Palestinian poetry. The researcher gave special since they are not in the scope of the metaphor attention to the work of Mahmoud Darwish because he (Doucherty, 2004). According to Cameron, understanding was a leading figure of Palestinian poetry. The the mechanism of using metaphors may help them researcher also chose and reviewed different pieces of understand how people think and exchange speech and literature concerning theories on social identity and knowledge (Cameron, 2003:2). Thus, a metaphor means collective memory mechanisms. Belhadj (2018) stated transmitting a word to a new meaning or to something that implicature stands as a paradigmatic example of the that is considered representative or symbolic. Longman nature and power of pragmatic explanations of linguistic Dictionary (HANSEN, 1999) describes the metaphor as a phenomena. He also provided an account of how it is way of describing something by referring to it as possible to mean more than what is said or literally something different and suggesting that it has similar expressed by an utterance, and this is what semantic qualities to that thing. theories fail to explain and interpret because they do not take the multiple readings offered by pragmatic theories into account. Al Salem (2014) analyzed the Arabic-to- METHODOLOGY English translation approaches adopted in rendering The recent study used the descriptive and analytical method to metaphors in poetic discourse, with specific reference to clarify the use of metaphors in Darwish's poetry related to nature ten of Mahmoud Darwish‟s poems. The researcher chose and politics, to understand his innovative background and his six poems translated more than once. The researcher faithfulness to the Palestinians. The analytical method was used to stated that this approach to selection provided a platform analyze the artistry and rhetoric metaphors of natural elements in for a comparative/contrastive analysis between different this poetry to illustrate the importance of these metaphors and symbols. translations. Mohamed (2012) investigated the metaphors of natural phenomena in the Holy Quran. These metaphors fall into 5 major classifications: Darwish's metaphors 1. metaphors of rain, The early poetry of Darwish is described by using simple Al-Sheikh 17 and everyday language. Then, he used modern themes It would have embraced the other bank. in his poems. These themes included alienation, (Translated by Mohammad Shaheen in Darwish, 2009b: pessimism, and fragmentation. Darwish used symbols to 87) escape the Israeli accountability (Darwish, 1994:19). He obtained strength out of such symbols like the sea, In the poem Iste‟ara (A Metaphor), Darwish addresses mountain, rock, and tree. the absent „other‟, where birds again are given as a The poetry of Mahmoud Darwish is closely connected metaphor for freedom: with his own life experiences, which extend from early childhood until pre-death times. The perplexity of You think you are higher than yourself, separation, perseverance in his homeland, resistance, Like a bird existing only in a metaphor. prison, exile torment, loss of identity, travelling and an The metaphor entices you to break away eagerness for return characterized his life. This covered From it and look at the empty sky, (Translated by the years 1960 until the mid-1990s when these common Catherine Cobham in Darwish, 2009c:71) and interrelated topics were covered by his themes. The metaphor was used during this time as "a way to Consequently, the natural elements that are used in remember an actual case" (Månsson, 2003:105). This Darwish's poetry as metaphors can be divided into three resulted in the near encounters with the trials and major categories: 1) Metaphors of plants and trees. 2) tribulations of the time. Metaphors for animals and birds. 3) Abstract and specific metaphors of natural components. This demonstrates In his later works Darwish metaphorically employed the that Darwish is the son of the Palestinian land and natural and its components, such as flowers, butterflies, community in which he was raised. In the following doves and springs. Mahmoud grew up on fields and pages, the researcher discusses the three groups in farms, played grass, breathed fresh air and ate the depth. produce of the soil. For instance, the sun and trees are used in his poem titled Ala'n Ba'dak (Now after you) metaphorically. The researcher relies on the versions of Metaphors of plants and trees the poems of Darwish originally in Arabic.