Epilogue: Arabic Literature and World Literature

Summary

I wanted to live outside the history that Empire imposes on its subjects, even its lost subjects.

– John Maxwell Coetze

As an epilogue to the present project, which summarizes my studies in the field of Arabic literature during the last fifty years, I will discuss below the conceptions and insights provided by Muhsin Jassim al-Musawi (Muḥsin Jāsim al-Mūsawī) (b. 1944) in his study The Medieval Islamic Republic of Letters: Arabic Knowledge Construction (2015). The discussion of the book's conceptions and insights will refer as well to other contributions that deal with the same topics or other relevant issues, in addition to review essays in English and Arabic on al-Musawi's scholalry contributions. Because of the theoretical gist and drive of al-Musawi's book and articles, and due to his declared ambition to contribute to a better understanding of Arabic literature in its historical development, his contributions are important not only for the study of premodern Arabic literature, but for the study of modern Arabic literature as well. In several studies, I explained the signifi-cance of the continuity and uninterruptedness of the Arabic literature from ancient times until the present day—in fact, since the emergence of the Arabic language long before the Arabic poetry known to us emerged in the fifth century.

In Modern Arabic Literature (2017), I argue that Arabic literature can be more adequately analyzed as a historical phenomenon when conceived of as a system that replaces the search for data about material aspects of literary phenomena with the uncovering of the functions that these aspects have. Arabic literature has been postulated to constitute a system or polysystem—a heterogeneous, multistratified, and functionally structured system-of-systems—kept in motion by a permanent struggle between canonical and non-canonical texts and models. The evaluation of the systems of successive periods springs from the oscillating movement between the periphery of the system and its center (here I could employ, instead of “system,” the term “republic” as this term will be explained below). Such a system is inclu-sive and consists of all literary texts regardless of any hierarchies of value, namely, all texts that in a given culture or community have been imbued with cultural value—something that allows for higher levels of complexity and significance in the way they are constructed.