al-Bāb et Iram aux colonnes. La réécriture du mythe
(al-Bāb and Iram of the Pillars. Rewriting the myth)
in La rivista di Arablit, a. VI, n. 11, giugno 2016, pp. 39-52.
In 1964, Ġassān Kanafānī wrote the play al-Bāb (The Door). In its foreword and in a final note to the play, Kanafānī claimed that al-Bāb’s topic was the myth of Iram ḏāt al-ʿimād (Iram of the Pillars) as it appears in the Quran, in Yāqūt’s Dictionary of Countries and in Ṭabarī’s History. He also informed the reader that quotations from the sources were embedded in commas and that any contemporary interpretation of the subject would be misleading since the myth is ancient. A study of the rewriting process, namely a comparison between the myth as it is written in the sources announced by the author and in al-Bāb, reveals significant aspects of the play. Clearly, the claimed accuracy in reporting the solemn sources is an expedient since additions innovate the classical myth. Contrasting the ancestral value of Iram as an example of hubris, the myth in the play tells of a man fighting against his fate and imposed power. Iram becomes a symbol of the withstanding Palestinian fight. Then, rewriting is a strategy serving symbolism and empowering the message of the play through an opposition to the ancestral myth.
