Rebirth as a Way of Hope in Poetic Images

Vita

Assit. Lect. Abd-Alrahmain Badr Ibrahim Al – Wazeer, MA degree in Literature (Poetry). He works as a tutor in the Ministry of Education of Iraq at the General Directorate of Education in Baghdad, Karkh First – Abu Gharib Education Department. He also works as an authenticated master trainer at the same Directorate. Al – Wazeer has started his educational career since 2015 as an English tutor. He has got a Master Trainer certificate (equal to Diploma) in 2017 from The British Council in Iraq, supervised by the Ministry of Education. He got an M.A. degree in Poetry in 2021 from the Faculty of Education at Diyala University.

Al – Wazeer is highly interested in different themes of contemporary poetry and cultural studies. 

Professor Luma Ibrahim Al-Barzenji (Ph.D.) in Modern American Novel works as a University Teacher in the Department of English\Faculty of Education for Humanities\ University of Diyala in Iraq. In her academic career, she wrote and published many papers that deal with literature in general and novels in particular of significant references of B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. studies. Beyond Literary Borders: Glimpses from Beauty and Seriousness (2011), is the third published book preceded by the second book, Creativity Grounds of Regional Novels (2020), and the first book, The Contemporary Dramatic and Fictional Literary Visions (2019).

Al-Barzenji is highly interested in different themes of modern and contemporary fictions and cultural studies.

Table of Contents

Vita

Table of Contents

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Preface

CHAPTER ONE: Myth and Mythology

Introduction

Mythological and Archetypal concepts

Mythological Literature

Mythology and Religion

Mythical characters in poetry

Reviving the Myth in Arab and American poetry

The Mystical Myth of Rebirth

CHAPTER TWO: Life and the Philosophical, Literary career in Yousuf Al-Khal, Adunis (Ali Ahmed Sa'id), Edward Field, and Leslie Marmon Silko

Introduction

Yousif Al-Khal: The Conscious Promoter of Modern Arabic Poetry (1917-1987)

Adunis (Ali Ahmed Sa'id): The heart of the Modern Arabic Poetry (1930-?)

Edward Field: The WWII Veteran Poet (1924 - ?)

Leslie Marmon Silko: A Laguna Pueblo Indian Literary Figure (1948 -?)

CHAPTER THREE:

The Mythological Search for Rebirth in The Arab & American Literature

References

Appendix

Dedications

To the Memory of My Father

Acknowledgments

As with post-colonial literature, Arab and American literature are founded on the legitimacy and acceptance of social, psychological, theological, linguistic, and political principles of change. To absorb these changes, these individuals must make a concerted effort to abandon the familiar in quest of the novel, to rebel against the system and tradition. They try to forge a new identity, torn between the old and the new. This book will examine modern Arab and American poets such as Adunis (Ali Ahmed Sa'id), Yousuf Al-Khal, Edward Field, and Leslie Marmon Silko who approach these topics directly, even confrontationally, in order to clearly articulate their concerns. Trapped between two worlds, the protagonists navigate a current social space, while the writer negotiates a new literary space, caught between two cultures and frequently languages. Their works are centered on the concept of rebirth. What binds this collection of Arab and American texts together as a literary system are many reoccurring themes, often in binary oppositions: acculturation, dualism, prejudice, parental estrangement, war memories, poverty, and affluence. Finally, these authors tell us indirectly that archetypes and images may be conquered only by attempting to transform present reality into a better one via the use of myths and mythologies.

Preface

The motivation behind this book reveals an insight into myths and mythologies of ancient times by concentrating on the poetic image of Rebirth from different points of view by examining the interpretations and allusions of two different cultures, Arab and American, in contemporary poetry. This image will be examined by selecting poetic texts of certain poets from both cultures. Poets like Adunis ¹ and Yousuf Al-Khal from the Arab world, and Edward Field and Leslie Marmon Silko from America. Poems are chosen from the mythical characters of the myths of Tammuz, Adonis ² , the Rebirth of Christ, Icarus, the Phoenix, and mythical animals to communicate their views and show their creative value in order to alert people to change their current reality into something better. Those poets used the mythologies and myths to express the suffering in the crisis of Arabs and Americans in the current times to bring them to the reader as a way of reaching what those citizens were trying to achieve.

CHAPTER ONE: Myth and Mythology

Introduction

Human beings have consistently been mythmakers. They have customarily utilized stories to depict or clarify things they could not define otherwise. Ancient myths have been stories by which the ancestors could acclimatize the puzzles around and inside them. In this sense, myth is connected with metaphor, in which an article or occasion is contrasted with a different object or event in such a way as to make its inexplicable essence clear.

Humans are recognized by their capacity to have thoughts that went past their everyday experiences from an early date. They, in this manner, have a significant looking for creatures. They have creative minds, the workforces that empower them to consider something that is not promptly present and that, when they initially imagine it, has no goal presence (Campbell, 1988). In any case, for quite a while, legendary believing is in unsavoriness. It is frequently excused as unreasonable and pompous. Myth is utilized to depict some falsehood. Accordingly, the tales of Zeus and Hera's adventures, Theseus, Perseus, and Odysseus, are myths that helped people use their minds to be mythmakers. Assortments of the fantasy stories of specific societies are mythologies: the characters' endeavours just referenced structure portions of Greek mythology; Osiris and Isis's narratives are essential for Egyptian mythology. People also utilize mythology to allude to the academic field worried about examining fantasies and legends. They can also talk about myth as a theoretical reality, similar to religion or science.

The process of the connection between myth-making and human beings states that myths establish stories connected with the beginning of cultures. Myths decipher wonders that ancients had no clarification for, and their reality depends on shared encounters and information (Wallace and Hirsch, 2011). Due to them, myth is frequently discovered within the genre that an extraordinary being or power intercedes on human occasions, forcing people to imagine their lives becoming challenging to live and need supernatural creatures or heroes to save them from this misery.  Thus, confidence in myths is kept up in societies when there is an uphold for those convictions from ceremonies. Myths exist as an element of the human, whose presence is ontological, existential, and moral, opening onto possible universes. Writers welcome the reader or watcher to decipher, build, and arrange a certain semiosis. They put under the scope that their significance highlights the show elsewhere of the importance of the myth-making.

Accordingly, considering definitions of Myth or Mythology have linked the idea of myth-making with ancient stories that the forefathers told. The English term myth derives from the ancient Greek word mythos, which means people's tale, and logos, which means word or speech, or the spoken story of a people. In the early nineteenth century, this Greek term began to be used in English and other European languages in a much narrower context, as a scholarly term for a traditional story, most often one relating to a people's early history or explaining a natural or social phenomenon, and frequently involving supernatural beings or events. Ancient Greek (mythologa) combines the term mthos with the suffix (-logia) to denote 'romance, fiction, story-telling. Plato used the word (mythologa) to refer to 'fiction' or 'story-telling of any sort. Thus, Mythology or Myth is a general term used in modern and contemporary literature for various stories from ancestors' faith to the modern and contemporary epics that depend upon a fanciful world. Because of the variety in using this term, it becomes hard to attach a strict definition to the terms without missing many of the word's newer uses. Myth, according to Finnish folklorist Lauri Honko (1984), can also be defined as:

Myth, a story of the gods, a religious account of the beginning of the world, the creation, fundamental events, the exemplary deeds of the gods as a result of which the world, nature, and culture were created together with all parts thereof and given their order, which still obtains. A myth expresses and confirms society's religious values and norms; it provides a pattern of behaviour to be imitated, testifies to the efficacy of ritual with its practical ends, and establishes the sanctity of cult. (p. 49)

Additionally, Myths use strong justifications for natural occurrences. They may also provide light on grandiose concepts like creation and death. Mythology is a compilation of common myths found in many cultures and nations; nevertheless, the Norse, Roman, and Greek myths are the most popular.

By and large, the term's original meaning guides most academics and writers in their attempts to comprehend and interpret the story. The original definition of mythology is the study and comprehension of regularly sacred stories or tales of a culture referred to as myths or the collection of such stories that deal with various aspects of the human condition: good and evil; the meaning of torment; human origins; the origins of place names, animals, cultural values, social characteristics, and conventions; and the significance of life and death. (Sherman, 2014). Thus, myths articulate the beliefs and assessments of these topics' respective civilizations. There is no clear definition of myth, no universal standard against which all occurrences may be evaluated (Kirk, 1970). Thus, it is difficult to find a specific definition for the word myth because it has a wide range of activities and actions that make it unique and challenging to define. According to The Oxford Dictionary (2010), a myth is defined as A traditional story, especially one concerning the early history of people or explaining a natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events (P.521). Another definition is set by American writers Maria Leach and Jerome Fried (1984) by saying:

[A myth is] a story, presented as having actually occurred in a previous age, explaining the cosmological and supernatural traditions of a people, their gods, heroes, cultural traits, religious beliefs, etc. The purpose of myth is to explain, and, as Sir G.L. Gomme said, myths explain matters in "the science of a pre-scientific age."Thus myths tell of the creation of man, of animals, of landmarks; they tell why a certain animal has its characteristics (e.g. why the bat is blind or flies only at night), flies only at night), why or how certain natural phenomena came to be (e.g. why the rainbow appears or how the constellation Orion got into the sky), how and why rituals and ceremonies began and why they continue. (p.778)

Recently, Eric Gould (2017) argues that the idea of myth has developed into a new all-encompassing word for contemporary life, one that may signify both everything and nothing. He defines myth as a synthesis of values that, in a unique way, manages to signify the most things to the most significant number of people. In it, there is allegory and tautology, reason and unreason, logical thinking and imagination, beginning and end, beginning and end of the world (Gould, 2017:5).

By investigating these definitions, one finds that they do not fully understand this motif. These definitions connect the idea of mythology with actions that happened in ancient times, such as stories of heroes, gods, goddesses, legendary animals, and humans with supernatural powers, which means that this word has no connection with the present time. In other words, these stories cannot be repeated in the present day. Accordingly, the perfect definition of this term should be concentrated on both what happened in ancient times and how can people connect it with the present time. Thus, mythology can be defined as a collection of stories and tales that tell legendry stories about heroes, gods, goddesses, and mythical creatures focusing on one or more themes such as death, rebirth, and sacrifice to clarify a strong connection of these themes with the events of the present time.

By applying the last definition, one finds, in recent days, that mythology or myth has a significant role in many aspects of disciplines, including philosophy, society, politics, history, religions,