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The Novella in Arabic: a Study in Fictional Genres

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2009

Roger Allen
Roger Allen
Affiliation:
Department of Oriental Studies University of Pennsylvania
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Extract

Before broaching the main topic of this study, there seem to me to be two general issues involving terms in the title which need to be addressed: The one concerns nomenclature, the other the question of genres. A certain vagueness colors most attempts at definition of the term “novella,” something which seems the result of both the way in which the term has developed and the considerable differences of opinion among critics. Thus the Oxford English Dictionary seems to reflect the relatively recent interest in the genre in the English-speaking world by not including the word at all in the main part of the dictionary and by defining it in the Supplement as “a short novel (as in the stories of Boccaccio's Decameron).” As Howard Nemerov points out, however, “the term ‘short novel’ is descriptive only in the way that the term ‘Middle Ages’ is descriptive—that is, not at all, except with regard to the territory on either side.” The index to the English translation of Todorov's Poetics of Prose lists: Novella, see Tale. Such entries as these do at least convey to us the notion that the novella operates somewhere along a fictional spectrum, the two poles of which are the novel and the short story, but that is all.

Type
Articles
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 18 , Issue 4 , November 1986 , pp. 473 - 484
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1986

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References

1 For the history of the terms, see Gillespie, Gerald, “Novella, Nouvelle, Novella, Short Novel?—A Review of Terms,” Neophilologicus, 51 (1967), 117–127 and 225–229.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Howard Nemerov, quoted in Paine, J. H. E., Theory and Criticism of the Novella (Bonn, 1979), p. 9.Google Scholar See also Springer, Mary Doyle, Forms of the Modern Novella (Chicago, 1975), p. 4.Google Scholar

3 Todorov, Tzvetan, The Poetics of Prose, Howard, Richard, trans. (Ithaca, 1977), index.Google Scholar

4 See the Standard College Dictionary (New York, n.d.), s.v. “Novella.”

5 See Allen, Roger, The Arabic Novel: An Historical and Critical Introduction (Syracuse, 1982), p. 93, fn. 99.Google Scholar

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16 Johnson-Davies, Denys, Azure, 8 (1982), 16–17.Google Scholar Besides Nemerov's comment noted above, we might cite Judith Leibowitz: “This is an unfortunate confusion because the short novel is a short version of the novel genre of fiction, whereas the novella is a different literary form, coinciding occasionally only in length with the short novel.” See her Narrative Purpose in the Novella (The Hague, 1974), p. 9.

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23 Ibid., p. 129: “serious action centered on a single character.”

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27 Walter Silz, quoted in Leibowitz, p. 51.

28 I should make it clear that in this analysis of Haqqī's work and those of Sālih and Idrīs which follow it, I am not aiming to present a comprehensive analysis of each work, but only to identify or even isolate those features which are germane to a theoretical discussion of the novella genre.

29 Badawi, Mustafa, JAL 1 (1970), 145.Google Scholar

30 Sālih, 'Urs al-Zayn, pp. 6, 39, and 58, also 25 and 47; Wedding of Zein, pp. 2, 25, and 28, also 16 and 30. The matter of narrative point of view is investigated by Grolmann, Susan, JAL, 10 (1979), 117–18.Google Scholar

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32 My quotations are from Mustafa Badawi's excellent translation, The Saint's Lamp and Other Stories (Leiden, 1973), Pp. 2 and 7. See also Qindīl Umm Hāshim, pp. 6 and 13.

33 Haqqī, Qindīl Umm Hāshim, pp. 11, 17, and 24; The Saint's Lamp, pp. 5, 10, and 15.

34 Ibid., p. 54; ibid., p. 36. Others have noted the theme of light and blindness as a central motif: Badawi, , JAL, 1 (1970), 160,Google Scholar and Mcclean, , JAL, 11 (1980), 80.Google Scholar

35 For a discussion, see Badawi, , JAL, 1 (1970), 159.Google Scholar

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37 The imagery of the work is well explored by Mcclean, , JAL, 11 (1980), pp. 80–87.Google Scholar

38 For such overviews of the works of al-Hayyib Sālih, see Johnson-Davies, in Azure, 8 (1982)Google Scholar and Nasr, Ahmad in JAL, 11 (1980), pp. 88–104.Google Scholar There is also extensive discussion in Constance Berkley's unpublished Ph.D. dissertation (New York University, 1979).

39 Sālih, 'Urs al-Zayn, pp. 5, 41, 87, and 116; The Wedding of Zein, pp. 31, 47, 78, and 107.

40 Ibid., pp. 47–48; ibid., pp. 50–51.

41 Ibid., p. 97; ibid., p. 90.

42 Ibid., PP. 20, 62, 67, 78, 95, 100, 105–6, and 109; ibid., PP. 38, 58, 64, 73, 88, 93, 96–97, and 101. The thumbnail sketches are on ibid., p. 108 and ibid., P. 99.

43 Ibid., pp. 52 and 61; ibid., Pp. 52 and 57–58.

44 Ibid., P. 54; ibid. p. 54.

45 Ibid., P. 100; ibid., P. 93.

46 Ibid., p. 15; ibid., pp. 33 ff.

47 Ibid., PP. 26 and 28; ibid., PP. 40 and 41.

48 Ibid., PP. 21 and 36; ibid., Pp. 38 and 45.

49 Ibid., PP. 80 and 35; ibid., pp. 75 and 44.

50 Ibid., pp. 36, 65, 90, and 37; ibid., pp. 45, 63, 82, and 46.

51 Ibid., p. 67; ibid., p. 64.

52 Ibid., p. 61; ibid., p. 64.

53 Ibid., p. 63; ibid., P. 61.

54 For example, ibid., PP. 78, 81, and 101; ibid., Pp. 73, 77, and 94.

55 Ibid., PP. 81, 89, 78, and 81; ibid., pp. 77, 80, 73, and 77.

56 Ibid., pp. 101–2; ibid., P. 95.

57 Kurpershoek, P. M., The Short Stories of Yūsuf ldrīs (Leiden, 1981), Chapter III.Google Scholar

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61 Ibid., P. 292; ibid., P. 28.

62 Ibid., p. 364; ibid., 77.

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