Suspense Mechanism in Hariri’s Maqamat

زبان و ادبیات عربی

Article 2, Volume 4, Issue 6, October 2012   

Document Type: research article

DOI: 10.22067/jall.v4i6.16280

Abstract

Hariri’s Maqamat is one of Arabic cultural and literary works in the field of social aspects of life and linguistic characteristics and language games, as well as on narrative aspects of fictions. Avoidance from pure verbal and historical topics and from mere attention to rhetorical techniques in this work, on one hand, and the tendency to survey and follow the narration on the other hand can provide a basis for a new and active view to this work. Suspense as one of the fundamental elements of fiction has a notable role through a special mechanism. Processing of suspense in Hariri’s Maqamat is not only limited to the aspects of narration, but also extends to its special quality of language and its prominent literary values. Furthermore, the increasing delay at the level of the meaning and the plot advance introduce a special type of suspense in this work. This paper studies these various aspects of the suspense mechanism in Hariri’s Maqamat and demonstrates that the linguistic suspense is obviously dominant and prevalent through this work compared to narrative suspense.

Keywords

Hariri’s Maqamat; narration; linguistic suspense; narrative suspense