Original scientific paper
Poetic Alterities and Paradoxes in Poetry of Suad Al-Sabah
Mirza Sarajkić
; Faculty of Philosophy, University in Sarajevo.
Abstract
This essay analyses the work of the contemporary Kuwaiti poet Suad al-Sabah. The first poetry collections of Suad al-Sabah are rooted within the poetic framework of late neoclassicism. The female subject in these collections is almost non-existent, while the poet faithfully imitates the non-traditional norms of writing and understanding of the world. In the late 1980s, Suad al-Sabah revealed her original identity, unmasking at the same time all the facets of the dominant patriarchal canon in society. Her poetry becomes a resolute female and feminist discourse through which the poetess crystallizes her identity, and then seeks confirmation of her subjectivity in the androgenic simulacrum. The basic features of her mature poetry are revolutionary resistance, rage and surreal fragmentation trough which al-Sabah dissolves the dominant stereotypes about women and tends to subvert the imposed order. Nevertheless, even at this stage, the poetess insists on lyrical monism and devotion to the homeland as the abode of her core spirituality. This produces a special kind of paradox and poetic heterogeneity in her oeuvre. These two phenomena represent a unique feature of Suad al-Sabah's poetry. They are, at the same time, the reasons of her exclusion from the canon as well as for the misunderstanding of her poetry within the circles of literary criticism.
Keywords
contemporary Arabic poetry; Suad al-Sabah; women's writing; alterity; heterogeneity; paradox
Hrčak ID:
260726
URI
Publication date:
22.7.2021.
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