Engaging the Cities of Exile in Modern Arabic/Palestinian Poetry
Engaging the Cities of Exile in Modern Arabic/Palestinian Poetry

Summary/Abstract: The city as a literary image plays a tremendously vital role in the area of literature and cultural studies. Nevertheless, the city as a symbol in literature can be traced back to the Bible, but it is in the late nineteenth century that the literary city achieves a new level of significance. The face of the real-world city changed completely during this period, its pitch and intensity reached a new level and the city became fertile ground for poetic expression. However, the literary city acquired a new role in the early years of the twentieth century. While the city continued to act in its original role as a representative symbol or metonym or as a backdrop to add urban color, the twentieth century poet tried to write the very fabric of the city in his text, to reveal its underlying significance in the life of the poet and of city dwellers. In this cultural/historical context, this paper investigates the city/exile dialectics in Arabic literature underlining the attitudes of Arab/Palestinian poets toward the Diaspora motif integral to their traumatic experience in the cities of exile.

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