METAFICTIONAL FEATURES IN MUṢṬAFĀ AL-RĀFI‘Ī’S “RASĀ’IL AL-’AḤZĀN (LETTERS OF SORROWS)” ملامح ميتاقصّيّة في "رسائل الأحزان" لمصطفى الرافعي

Mohammad Hamad, Mahmoud Kabha

Abstract


This study traces the signs of metawriting or metafiction as a phenomenon in a literary sample written by al-Rāfi‘ī in 1924. More specifically, the study investigates the features of this phenomenon in al-Rāfi‘ī’s book “Rasā’il ’al-’Aḥzān (Letters of Sorrows)”. The study attempts to answer the following questions: How did al-Rāfi‘ī work with metafiction before it appeared as a literary phenomenon at the end of the twentieth century? And how was metafiction reflected in his literary writings? We do indeed find that al-Rāfi‘ī talked about the author, the narrator and the implied author. He also talked about metalanguage and about writing as a craft, discussing its processes, purposes, methodologies and expressive techniques as well as exploring the relationship between the author and the implied reader. All of these are considered metafictional features, thus proving our hypothesis that metafiction as a phenomenon had existed before the end of the twentieth century, and that al-Rāfi‘ī used various metafictional features in his writings.

نتتبع في هذه الدراسة إرهاصات لظاهرة الميتاكتابة أو الميتاقص، في نموذج أدبي للرافعي من عام 1924. حيث تستقصي الدراسة ملامح الظاهرة في كتابه "رسالة الأحزان".
تحاول الدراسة الإجابة عن السؤال: كيف اشتغل الرافعي بالميتاكتابة قبل أن تكون ظاهرة أدبية كما ظهر في نهاية القرن العشرين؟ وكيف انعكست الميتا كتابة في كتاباته الأدبية؟
نجد أن الرافعي قد تحدّث عن المؤلف والراوي والمؤلف الضمنيّ، وعن الميتالغة وعن الكتابة كصنعة، سيرورتها والغاية منها، منهجيتها وأدواتها التعبيرية، كما تحدث عن علاقة المؤلف بالقارئ الافتراضي المروي له.
يعتبر كل ذلك ملامح ميتاقصية، مما يثبت فرضيتنا أن الظاهرة الميتاقصية وجدت قبل نهاية القرن العشرين، وأن الرافعي استخدم بعضا منها.


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Keywords


al-Rāfi‘ī, Belles-lettres, metafiction, biography, the 20th Century literature /

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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.46827/ejlll.v5i2.267

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