Critical discourse of contemporary Arab problems of theory and methodology

Abstract

This study tackles two aspects of the issues of contemporary Arabic critical discourse ; namely, the theory and the approach. Both are well-represented by two common trends: traditional and new. The former belongs to our heritage focusing on the possibility of re-reading all that has been inherited making use of the western approaches after having them adapted to the extent they can match with the contemporary mental and cultural Arabic vision. The second trend has completely departed from the heritage. Moreover, it follows the western modernistic approach instead. It undertakes all western theoretical principles, mechanisms, and terminologies. The application of the modernistic western approach to the reading of Arabic literature as well as the innovation of Arab men of literature that have turned their literary work into a phenomenon which is a mere mimicry of the western phenomenon if not an appendix or an extension of it. As a matter of fact, a critical theory should reflect literature and literary creative aspects since a literary theory of this type must be the gist of the features of the Arabic literature including its syntactic, stylistic and aesthetic components. In conclusion, the present study is a practical attempt calling for re-visiting the western literary critical approaches and making all possible use of them on the condition that one should reserve the identity of Arabic literature including its thought and aesthetics.