The Novelistic Perspective in "Binā’ Arriwāyah" by "Siza Qassem"

Abstract

   The paper focuses on the Comparative approach to Literature, and on using it as a tool for studying literatures, by comparing them to each other, and analysing the areas of their interaction.

The subject of this paper is the book entitled “Binā’ Arriwāyah” or"The construction of the Novel"  by Siza Qasim, which is a a structural study of Najeeb Mahfouz’s Trilogy, based on comparing its structure to the structures of some European novels, and pointing the similarities and differences between them, without any attempt at proving the superiority of one over the others.

The concept of the novelistic perspective - as studied by the critic in her book - was chosen as a topic of invistigation in order to reveal the working methodology of the critic on the Trilogy.

The paper concluded that the critic adheres to René Wellek's method, and she was able to achieve her goal, which is to prove that the modern Arabic novel – although it came later in time than the Western novel - was able, with its

modern characteristics and techniques, to occupy a significant literary position on the international cultural scene, having received a cosiderable attention in English and other Western scholarships.

Having based her study of the novelistic perspective of Boris Uspensky's "A Poetics of Composition", and applied its concepts to Mahfouz’s trilogy, the critic’s study shows some differences between her terms and those of Uspensky, and this is, probably, due the richness of her sources.