Folk Literature in Maḥmūd Darwīš’s Poetry

in La rivista di Arablit, a. XII, n. 24, dicembre 2022, pp. 7-22.

Maḥmūd Darwīš (1941-2008) used various folkloristic elements in his poetic oeuvre: proverbs, songs and sayings. The present article will strive to explain the significance of this use of folklore by Darwīš, the extent to which he used it, and the stages in his poetic career in which he used it. In order to answer such questions, we use a diachronic perspective of Darwīš’s poetry, on the one hand, and analyze the artistic and ideological significance of his use of folk literature, on the other.
Our study found that Darwīš’s use of the three afore-mentioned forms of folk literature was most prominent during the first stage of his poetic career, which lasted from 1960, the year in which he published his first poetry collection, ʿAṣāfīr bi-lā aǧniḥah (Wingless Birds), until 1970, the year in which he left the country. His poetry during that period was characterized by direct rhetoric and direct expression of the people’s concerns. His use of folklore during that period thus made artistic sense, and gave realism to the contents of his works.

This is an Article from La Rivista di Arablit - Anno XII, numero 24, dicembre 2022

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L’Autore

Hussein Hamzah |