Authenticity versus Diversity in The Rock

Conference Paper

Sadiq, Ebtisam Ali . 2007

• نوع عمل المنشور: Literary Criticism
• الوسوم: World Literature in English
• اسم المؤتمر: Textual Strategies and Post-colonial Readings
• عنوان المؤتمر: Dammam, Saudi Arabia
• تاريخ المؤتمر: الاثنين, نيسان (أبريل) 24, 2006
• المنظمة الراعية: Dammam University

مستخلص المنشور

The Rock and Other Poems is a collection of poems by a Saudi scholar of English literature, Ezzat Khattab. It is a specimen of what is known as World Literature in English that differs from the corpus of Anglo-centric writings. This article is a postcolonial reading of some of the poems in the book. It views them as a curiously complex product that challenges English literature yet is deeply influenced by it. The poems use the English language and English poetic forms in order to politically challenge subversive colonial powers in the Arab world. However, despite the interest in the local culture and the Arab world, the text cannot maintain cultural purity. The author’s Arabic roots are colored by his vocation as a scholar of English literature.