The Structure of Historical Language and Its Narrative Manifestations in the Contemporary Arabic Novel: Al-Zayni Barakat by Gamal al-Ghitani as a Model

Abstract

This study seeks to explore the dialectical relationship between historical and fictional discourse by examining the mechanisms through which the language of historians is appropriated and transformed into an aesthetic instrument in contemporary Arabic narrative. The study takes the Egyptian novelist Gamal al-Ghitani's Al-Zayni Barakat as a case study to investigate the extent of his ability to emulate the linguistic and structural features of Mamluk-era chronicles, particularly those of Ibn Iyas. The study concludes that al-Ghitani's employment of historical language was neither a mere retreat into the past nor a form of classical imitation. Rather, it constituted a conscious experimental technique aimed at creating a metaphorical equivalent and an artistic projection through which he addressed the political and existential crises confronting the individual during the 1960s.