To install StudyMoose App tap and then “Add to Home Screen”
Save to my list
Remove from my list
This essay will pull upon two literary pieces, one written in Arabic and the other Swahili. Translations in English for both of these beginnings will be utilised for literary analysis. The intent of this essay is to do a comparing between the two literary pieces and analyze any similarities and differences. The analytical analysis will embrace three subjects from the class, state, tradition but it will chiefly concentrate on expatriate and it is within the kingdom of these subjects that the treatments will be carried out.
The first portion of the essay will discourse Gibran Kahlil Gibran 's verse form, 'You have you Lebanon and I have my Lebanon ' . The 2nd portion of the essay will analyze Abdulrazak Gurdah 's fresh 'Desertion ' . The last portion will climax the preceding treatments and shed visible radiation on similarities and differences between them. In the terminal pertinent decisions will be drawn.
The verse form 'You have your Lebanon and I have my Lebanon ' was first written in Arabic, in the 1920 's shortly after the World war, nevertheless it was subsequently translated in to English and edited by M.
Verified writer
Proficient in: Free Essays
5 (339)
“ KarrieWrites did such a phenomenal job on this assignment! He completed it prior to its deadline and was thorough and informative. ”
L. Wolf, A. R. Ferris, and A. D. Sherfan in The Treasured Writings of Kahlil Gibran. Kahlil Gibran was born in an ambiance of unfastened ill will and misgiving between Druze and Christian faiths, in the town of Bisharri in contemporary Lebanon which was under the Ottoman regulation. The people of Mount Lebanon had struggled for several old ages to derive independency from the Ottoman regulation, a cause that Gibran subsequently adopted to go an active member for it.
Assorted outside and foreign interventions that fostered spiritual hatred between the Christian, particularly the Maronite religious order, and the Moslem populations, caused the Mount Lebanon country to be a troubled part ( Connor, 1998 ) . Kahlil grew up in a hapless household, and turning up he found himself in `` blue, moistness, and vermin-infested diggingss '' , and so in his childhood, he sought safety in the olympian countryside around Bisharri ( Bushrui and Jenkins, 1998, p. 70 )
As a immature adult male Gibran migrated with his female parent and sister to the United States where he studied art and began his literary calling. Most of his early work was in Arabic, nevertheless, after 1918, most of the work published was in English ( Connor, 1998 ) . Gibran as a poet and a mysterious, was thrice exiled, and many argue that he was non merely geographically exiled, but besides estranged from the conventional society at big. Therefore, Gibran is said to be continually sing a yearning for the state of his birth, every bit good as a Utopian human society of his imaginativenesss, every bit good as for the higher universe of metaphysical truth ( From the Journal of Arabic Literature as quoted in Bushrui and Jenkins, 1998 ) . His authorship was characterized by a recognized manner for which he subsequently became celebrated for, it became known for the unusual qualities which made his texts `` Gibranian manner '' : a equivalent word for originality and foible ( Hawi, 1994, p. 82 ) . The most noticeable manner which can be found in his authorship is a series of changeless correspondences and antithetical statements ( Hawi, 1994, p. 77 ) .
In his verse form, `` You have your Lebanon '' Gibran speaks of many conflicting images of Lebanon. He makes a blunt differentiation between the Lebanon he knows and the 1 that exists. He starts his verse form by mentioning to work forces from West and East. Here he could perchance be mentioning to the Ottoman regulation, farther more the British and Gallic influence, in add-on to France 's Mandate over Lebanon in 1920 due to League of Nations.
As per his ain Lebanon, he presents a really countryside temper, and orderly everyday life. He outlines the whole twenty-four hours as it begins and follows till the terminal ( Line 2, `` early forenoon shepherds... return from their field '' , Gibran, 1920 ) . When he discusses the Lebanon of 1920 's he speaks of it with an implicit in sense of strangeness, a feeling of disaffection, about witting withdrawal that can be linked to his expatriate.
In the following portion of verse form, Lines 5-8: `` They are courageous, the liberators and the reformists... I leave my state little better than when I was born '' ( Gibran, 1920 ) , we see a covert indicant to his hatred for the Ottomans who he exclaims, may desire to reform and alter and be 'westernised ' and what could merely be understood in the historical context as a procedure of Secularism and Enlightenment, he claims these people are as a ship upon a ramping sea, edge to drop, deemed for devastation, for their psyches are so westernised that they have lost their ain kernel in an effort to be like the Europeans.
With a mention of `` siting themselves of their speech pattern '' ( Gibran, 1920 ) , we may propose that he means values and civilization and manner of thought, and this can be understood as he so speaks of them desiring to free themselves from a oppressive enemy, he refers to this as 'Ancient ' , possibly he is indicating to their cultural heritage, their religious beliefs which the Ottomans may fling in efforts to be like the Europeans. The metaphor of alteration of rusty ironss for glistening one may besides mean that although they may experience they have gotten freedom, but the political orientations of those who had ruled them, since tallies deep within them. He inquiries with deepened resent if any amongst those in Lebanon at that clip, can claim that they have done something for their state, or they have sacrificed themselves for the state. In line 9: `` Who among them dare to state, My life was a bead of blood in the venas of Lebanon... '' ( Gibran, 1920 ) , here, the reader one time once more sees sentiments of patriotism and nationalism, which can be understood in visible radiation of his life in Diaspora as a Lebanese patriot. The Gibran such poetries reveal is a flowery romanticist who, saturated with a obscure nostalgic unhappiness, sees in Lebanon, an aeriform incarnation of all that a nostalgic bosom is non and yet yearns to be. As argued by Naimy ( 1974 ) , it was this yearning for his fatherland, coupled with his feelings from being exiled and holding to get down a new life in 'foreign ' state that helped set up the footing for his artistic creativeness. Representative of the whole verse form, both in manner and in spirit of nostalgia and yearning for 'home ' , is the following two stanzas ( Lines 11-12 ) , `` Let me state you who the kids of my Lebanon... .they are the poets who pour their psyches in new cups '' ( Gibran, 1920 ) .
He discusses in item of the kids of his Lebanon, but in all his descriptions the people he points out are shepherds, husbandmans, vine-pressers, hubbies, parents, builders and poets. He refers to them as the kids of Lebanon, and this can be seen symbolically as they all constitute as the state builders, those who give his state its kernel. Furthermore one can reason that as portion of Ottoman reforms, exchange to urban life, higher instruction and a switch off from agribusiness and rural life were all really popular. Gibran may hold pointed out that his Lebanon was non a slave to the western thoughts of enlightenment, development and urbanisation, like the Ottomans, but it had a sense of natural repose, where each individual played his function ; the husbandman ploughed, the shepherds flocked their hers, so they could be used for pelt for the people of the vale, the vine pressers made the vine for his people, `` the builders, the throwers and the poets... '' ( Gibran, 1920 ) they all contributed their portion into doing Lebanon. In this text one can happen indexs that he genuinely he missed Bisharri and craved for the wild freedoms of his childhood life in the beautiful Lebanese countryside `` his acute sense of disaffection in the pullulating streets of Boston worsening his sadness ( Bushrui and Jenkins, 1998, p. 57 )
In lines 18 and 19, Gibran begins to indicate towards the hereafter of Lebanon, and he poses rhetorical inquiries which may hold stemmed from turning up in an environment of political and spiritual resistance every bit good as the pressing control of the Ottomans. His mention to 'a patched garment in this subdivision can besides be viewed as the decomposition within the states civilians for emancipating Lebanon and reconstruct its kernel. By the terminal of this portion, he exclaims that `` that the wooden plough pulled by the cattle in the crevices of Lebanon is nobler than your dreams and aspirations '' ( Gibran, 1920 ) , this can be viewed that the writer is indicating out that the cattle, which till morning, pulls on the wooden plough, to assist the husbandman for the initial cultivation of dirt and helps in readying for seeding the seeds or seting. An cattle, he claims is baronial in contrast to the dreams of people of Lebanon, for the cattle in his position may hold had altruistic dreams for the state for the improvement of the people, as suppose to draw a bead on for its ain ego.
The writer finishes the verse form by stating that he would hold felt sorry for those in Lebanon, who think they know what they are making is self destructive, if they were witting of their actions. He so really nicely claims in the terminal that they are accomplishing nil and therefore he says `` You have your Lebanon and I have my Lebanon '' . This literary history of the verse form has shown that this verse form is a contemplation of Gibran 's literary calling as a Lebanese emigre who passionately yearns for his fatherland. Having lived in expatriate, the few old ages of his childhood had left an unerasable grade on his life and prompted him to dominate his plants by reinventing his childhood memories, enjoying the natural milieus of Bisharri ; the beauty of which emerged as a dramatic and symbolic influence to his drawings and Hagiographas.
For the intent of comparing between Gibran 's verse form and Gurnah 's novel, the 2nd portion of this essay will discourse and analyze the fresh 'Desertion ' . A compendious sum-up of the novel will be described, along with a treatment of chief events in the secret plan so as to develop the context for the 3rd portion.
As for the fresh Desertion 's writer, Abdulrazak Gurnah was born in Zanzibar, the East African Island, in 1948. He was 18 old ages old, a few old ages after Zanzibar 's independency, when he decided to travel to England to prosecute instruction. However, his chief intent was to fly the political instability in his state. Soon after his reaching in England, he acquired a repute as a bookman and critic of African literature, upon printing three novels that were set in the immigrant community in England. Critics have faced a challenge whether to sort Gurnah as a Black British writer, an African author, or merely as a modern author of the English linguistic communication ( Eckhard, 2001 ) . Gurnah ( 1993, p. 137 ) claims that he does non valorize the construct of state province, neither does he reason that the postcolonial state of affairs is a continuance of colonialism, but that in his literary pieces, he takes a critical expression at the postcolonial Zanzibar, and post-independence Zanzibar, every bit much as the colonial powers ( Ibid. , p. 137 ) .
Much of the focal point of his authorship has been 'exodus ' , for most of his novels feature a adult male who has been displaced from Zanzibar for political, societal or personal grounds ( Hand, 2010 ) . This scenario ironically resembles to his ain migratory status, when he left for England in 1966. However upon being questioned in respects to this resemblance he responds
`` I know I came to composing in England in alienation, and I realize now that it is a status of being from one topographic point and life in another that has been my topic over the old ages, non as a alone experience which I have undergone, but as one of the narratives of our times. ''[ 1 ]
Associating to what Gurnah highlighted, it is this status of being from one topographic point and life in another ( migration and the phenomena of Diasporic infinite and Diaspora experiences ) which is the chief focal point of the following portion of this essay. It should be noted that this is besides the subject that takes different signifiers throughout the Literature that Gurnah has written. The novel in inquiry for the intent of this essay is his capturing work, Desertion ( 2005 ) . It is a fresh about `` how one narrative contains many and how they belong non to us but are portion of the random currents of our clip '' ( Gurnah 2005, p. 120 ) .
The book is divided into three parts, and as you read through it the loose spots or the 'abandoned secret plans ' Begin to climax in the terminal. In portion I of the novel, the narrative unfolds in a little East African town in 1899. The readers are told of the reaching of the mzungu, a white adult male, Martin Pearce in the small town. The adult male is wounded and hurt and we subsequently find out that he was heartlessly abandoned by his ain Somali ushers while they were on the manner to the seashore. Hassanali, a local store proprietor fortuitously finds him and decided to take him to his house and acquire him treated and looked after by his married woman and sister. Another English adult male, Pearce is introduced into the narrative, as an amateur historiographer and linguist, who lives in the house of the District Officer, along with Frederick Turner, fellow Englishman who is a smoothie, gracious and able to discourse with the locals in Arabic. Upon retrieving, Pierce decides to travel to Hassanali 's store and thank him for his cordial reception, when over tiffin he meets Rehana, his sister, and falls in love with her. The love matter of a European adult male and a native adult female is irregular, and non accepted by the people of the small town. Rehana one time married before and her Indian hubby had abandoned her and returned to India. They both now start another love narrative, but the antagonist inquiries the implausibleness of their relationship, he inquiries and reflects:
`` I do n't cognize how it would hold happened. The unlikelihood of it defeats me... . This was 1899, non the age of Pocahontas when a romantic crack with a barbarian princess could be described as an escapade... . Martin Pearce was non a naA?ve immature crewman from a rural backwater or a swaggering urchin emboldened by imperial pride, who was overwhelmed by the unfamiliarity of his milieus or was touched into impetuosity by the beauty of an alien gem or a muscular virago. What would hold made an Englishman of his background -- university, colonial functionary, a bookman -- get down something like that with the sister of a tradesman in a little town on the East African seashore? '' ( Gurnah 2005, 110 ; 116 ) .
In aftermath of these rhetorical contemplations, the narrative comes to an unexpected arrest, as the writer decides to 'abandon ' the secret plan and get down the 2nd portion of the narrative. The new scene of the narrative is a household life in Zanzibar, fifty old ages subsequently, on a little island which is under British regulation. It shifts to first individual narrative, as supposed to the 3rd individual narrative in the first portion. The readers are introduced to events taking up to Zanzibar 's Independence, and five new characters, two former extremist school instructors, their two boies, Amin, Rashid and merely girl, Farida. The readers now find out that Rashid is the storyteller of the novel, and an intelligent adult male who secured a scholarship award to analyze at a British University. Amin, who is the senior of the two boies, and the ideal 'perfect ' boy between the two, corsets in Zanzibar and decides to take up a instruction profession. He falls in love with Jamila, who is a grass widow and popularly ill-famed in the community. One begins to see parallel mentions to portion one, as Pearce desserts Rehana due to societal force per unit areas and returns back to England, Amin deserts Jamila due to parental force per unit area and conformance.
The last portion of the fresh focal points on Rashid 's life, populating in expatriate in England, where he is informed of the force and violent deaths and lawlessness in Zanzibar, a revolution against the new authorities. The readers see through Rashid 's narrative how his reaching in England was a manner to construct his ain individuality off from the force per unit areas of household and society. He completes his surveies, attains success which he strives for, amidst all that he is unable to return place so he stabilises himself in England, by acquiring married to a White adult female.
Harmonizing to O'Conner ( 2007, p. 7 ) Gurnah, as a outstanding African rational life in the West, is largely known to be sensitive to the African quandary and peculiarly concerns himself to the societal and politic discord of Zanzibar. This phenomenon is overshadowed in his novel as we see that in the letters of Amin, in form of changeless narrative of the conditions of Zanzibar, before and after the Independence. Apart from helter-skelter unnatural scenes of Zanzibar under the revolution, there is a sense of forsaking that runs throughout the novel, puting a temper of strong melancholy atmosphere within all the three parts. One may reason that in this sense, the reader is introduced to the discontents of love.
As for Rashid, Gurnah depicts changeless discouragement as experience by him ; his interaction with the English people is non pleasant. Rashid inquiries and doubts his ain image and individuality as a response to what he believes the English perceive of him. He is disturbed by their ill will in England, and he uses that experience to understand the presence of the colonizers in Zanzibar prior to Independence. As he reflects in the novel: '' So, at first I sensed this feeling of opposition, and so I heard the abashed snickers and saw the expressions of surprise and annoyance in anon. faces in the corridors and in the streets, and in clip I came to hear their annoyance and disfavor. It was all a spot of a surprise. It took a long clip to larn non to care, old ages, a life-time. aˆ¦ I realised that I did non cognize really much about England, that all the books I had studied and the maps I had pored over had taught me nil of how England idea of the universe and of people like me '' ( Gurnah 2005, 214 ) . Due to this Rashid besides learnt the acrimonious worlds of his ain individuality and realised ways in which he rejected Zanzibar.
In relation to this, and against this background, the undermentioned portion of the essay will discourse feelings of difference, alienation, isolation and 'exile ' , by casting visible radiation on both the verse form by Gibran ( 1920 ) and the novel by Gurnah ( 2005 ) and farther by discoursing the importance of memory of one 's state and the continual traditions one relates to it. Remembrance is a cardinal procedure in the formation of individuality, and composing about one 's state becomes a manner of retrieving and it is '' [ this ] compulsion with the abandoned fatherland [ that ] fuels the demand to narrate and animate it '' ( O'Conner, 2007 ) . In Vijay Nairk 's interview with Gurnah, the writer claims that he thinks about Zanzibar, Africa, every twenty-four hours, even several times a twenty-four hours. So it is this active procedure of memory, which gives safety to the exiled one, from the unsettling diasporic experience.
The analysis in this portion of the essay will get down by gestating 'home ' as a brooding infinite highlighting and how this infinite can be expanded to joint the state as place. Appadurai argues that frequently national home-building undertakings become globally spread, particularly for those life in expatriate or diaspora, for them the national ethnoscape transcends topographic point of beginning, and specific clip in history, ( Appadurai, 1991 ) . For them their `` place '' ceases to be merely a topographic point of beginning, and alternatively, albeit, conceptually, it transforms into the topographic point they began their journey and what constitutes their concluding finish, which is termed the 'myth of return ' ( Cruise O'Brien, 1972 ; Dahya, 1973 ; Anwar, 1979 ; Voutira, 1991 ; Al Rasheed, 1994 ; Warner, 1994 ) . The construct of the myth of return, Al-Rasheed argues ( 1994 ) , non merely encapsulates this sense of a fabricated yesteryear, or at least one that is idealized and reinvented, but besides a fabricated hereafter. Benedict Anderson argues Imagined Communities are to be distinguished, non by their falsity/genuineness, but by the manner in which they are imagined ( Anderson, 1983, p. 15 ) . Those populating in diaspora are more expressed in the ways they articulate their individualities, their desires sing fatherland and their constructs of the 'national place ' by agencies of nostalgia and corporate memory ( Anwar, 1979 ) . One may reason that while keeping such corporate memories of a place, and the nostalgia associated with it, that these memories may go selective and sole and autumn into the propaganda for societal, political motivations. Harmonizing to Zetter ( as quoted in O'Conner, 2007 ) , while in expatriate, `` place '' is something that people struggle to keep, nevertheless, in a different sense it is besides sought as past topographic point of beginning, as a present topographic point of abode, and a future topographic point of return. Furthermore, harmonizing to Madan Sarup ( 1994 ) the construct of place is really closely linked to the impression of individuality, in that, one 's individuality is `` the narrative we tell of ourselves and [ ... ] besides the narrative others tell of us '' ( Sarup, 1994, p. 95 ) . He farther argues that the jobs and troubles that are faced by those populating off from 'home ' is a contemplation of their continual hunt for roots ; they fetishize about their place so as to beef up their individualities.
Such impressions of nostalgia and convalescence of the construct of 'home ' in expatriate and in a diasporic infinite can assist understand Gibran 's poetic temperament. In his work, it was as a adult male from Lebanon that Gibran spoke, ardently showing the Lebanese manner of idea and belief. This coupled with the fact that Gibran had started his literary calling as a Lebanese emigre in twentieth-century America, along with his passionate longing for his fatherland ; one may happen a basic hint to his poetic temperament and rational model. It can be understood that Gibran was sing a ternary yearning: a yearning for the state of his birth, for a Utopian human society of the imaginativeness in which he can experience at place, and for a higher universe of metaphysical truth. Such a superimposed yearning established the footing for his artistic creativeness, and any ulterior developments in his literary pieces, were lone fluctuations in accent and non in sort ( Naimy, 1974 ) . However, it is of course arguable that it was in his vernal phase that Gibran 's yearning grew in Boston, where he foremost settled when he arrived in America, and that his nostalgic canonized yearning for Lebanon, the state of the first waxy old ages of his life, would rule most of his literary pieces.
As for the novel by Gurnah ( 2005 ) , the reader is introduced to Rashid who suffers from a supplanting, upon holding moved to Europe for instruction, populating off from his household, and so due to political agitation in Zanzibar, he is unable to return place. Rashid 's yearning for his household and his 'home ' is problematized by his experiences in London, where he faces changeless jitteriness of adjustment in, feelings of being different and estranged and loathed by the indigens at that place. It is in aftermath of these emotions that he becomes witting of his ain tegument, and his ain individuality that he begins to gain that he must revisit his roots. Rashid 's missive correspondence with his brother Amin can be seen as a manner to rekindle the bond he lost by go forthing Zanzibar.
The impression of Exile can be derived from Desertion in assorted ways. One of the chief characteristics of the novel is narrative of cross-cultural personal businesss. Throughout the narrative, personal businesss are doomed for societal and cultural grounds. There is Hassanali, an Indian adult male, who experiences rejection by the society for get marrieding an African adult female. Rehana has an matter with Pearce, they have a kid together but Pearce leaves her and returns to his married woman in England. Jamila is 'estranged and exiled ' in her ain community due to the affiliated ill fame of her household, and her assorted blood. Her love matter with Amin does non boom due to social force per unit areas. In a manner, it can be suggested that Amin was 'exiled ' from his love matter, refused to return to his lover and maintain off from her to populate a life in recollection and nostalgia. Furthermore, there are many mentions made to the prevalent traditions of Zanzibar, such as honor and shame, in respects to Rehana, Jamila and certain prohibitions and conditions attached to adult females. There is besides the mention to parental authorization, even in 1950s and how that is still upheld in Zanzibar and ways in which affects the childs ' determination, in mention to Amin stoping his love matter with Jamila. Another tradition that runs through the narrative line is the respect for an senior sibling, and the manner the eldest is deemed as model. In add-on to this the phenomenon of 'desertion ' tallies throughout the narrative line. British colonisers desert native lovers, Native work forces desert lovers deemed liberated and irregular, and immature work forces, desert their fatherland, Zanzibar to seek comfort in a foreign state. As for the migration experience, and life in a diaspora infinite off from place, Gurnah 's word picture is somewhat different than what Gibran writes, in that Gurnah focuses on the lived experiences of those away from place, foregrounding the ill will, alienation and battle of life in a new state. Furthermore, the subject of tradition permeates the narrative line, where issues of honor and shame in the Swahili society are discussed in instance of Rehana,
As for Gibran, he is depicting his Lebanon in expatriate, remembering his childhood experiences in Lebanon and asseverating how it should be and to some extent how it will be in the hereafter. He thinks his state was invaded by the West who is seeking to determine the mental idea procedures and the kernel of Lebanon. He defines the strengths he thinks his state has what he believe will do to subsequently on, down the route, overcome the transmutations made by West. He suggests that everyone in Lebanon has a sense of belonging to their fatherland, and he is so expressed with every item. He speaks of the mountains, husbandmans, and how farmer by laboring the dirt ; dirt which signifies 'homeland ' , develop the strongest of bond that exists: bond of the husbandman with his dirt, with his fatherland. He defines the qualities of husbandmans and depict his attempts, in a manner the reader sees a metaphor here, that this what is traveling to assist the husbandman win in winning over his dirt ( fatherland ) , by gnawing the West.
He aims to actuate the Lebanese and remind them of what he believes is 'his Lebanon ' . He wishes to cultivate consciousness and stress the kernel of what he believes his Lebanon is. He wrote about freedom and it remained the chief class of all his authorship. He emphasizes and defines Lebanese strengths, by reminding the people of the traditions, `` They are husbandmans who would turn the fallow field into garden and grove. ... They are the poets who pour their psyches in new cups. '' He is asseverating that these are the people of Lebanon who can work to convey back freedom from the oppressors. He inquiries that what will stay of 'your Lebanon ' after you have tried to instill into the system the western values, that despite the violent deaths in Lebanon, after a century their transitions of Lebanon will non persevere. As discussed above, Anderson argues that Imagined Communities are to be distinguished, non by their falsity/genuineness, but by the manner in which they are imagined ( Anderson, 1983, p. 15 ) , and for Gibran, his Lebanon is what he recalls and what constitutes his imaginativeness of Lebanon.
Decision:
This essay has incorporated a rationalist attack for text analysis, in that the writers ' life has been used to explicate the text and the contents of the text. It has attempted to analyze two pieces of Arabic and Swahili literature. The intent was to depict and clarify the significance of the texts in the first portion, so as to construct the context for the 2nd portion which encompassed a comparing between the two pieces in visible radiation of three subjects of the class, Exile, Nation and Tradition. Upon analytical analysis, it can be seen that although both writers have had personal experiences of expatriate, they have written these texts in their ain manner to retrieve their fatherland, to revisit traditions every bit good as recuperate and place with their individualities. It is seen through the treatments, that state, tradition and expatriate are subjects that run parallel through both texts and they differ in the manner they have been articulated by both writers. This essay has been written with a scruples of the subjective reading of both texts and their significance and a more comprehensive comparative literature reappraisal is beyond its range. Therefore, we see how same phenomenon affects people in different ways ; an experience of expatriate, for illustration, would be articulated in different ways of look and different writers will hold different positions of it.
Literary Analysis Of Arabic And Swahili Text English Literature Essay. (2020, Jun 02). Retrieved from https://studymoose.com/literary-analysis-of-arabic-and-swahili-text-english-literature-new-essay
👋 Hi! I’m your smart assistant Amy!
Don’t know where to start? Type your requirements and I’ll connect you to an academic expert within 3 minutes.
get help with your assignment
