The Dialectics of Exile and Biography in the Work of Mahmoud Darwish: “Tuesday with clear weather” and “Antithesis” as a Case Study

Abstract

This study presented a critical textual analysis of two of Mahmoud Darwish’s long poems: “Tuesday with clear weather” and “Antithesis”, which the poet included in his Diwan “Almond Blossoms or Beyond” under the collective title “Exile.” The two poems are interpreted from the perspective of the poet’s biography as being part of the Palestinian collective identity and its relationship with exile as experienced and narrated by the poet. A reading of the two poems would reveal that in the first poem the poet presented phases of his biography, while in the second poem he portrayed some phases of the biography of the Palestinian critic and intellectual Edward Said. Moreover, the poet associated his biography of exile with the traumatic Palestinian collective memory of successive tragic transformations generated by all forms of victimization such as exile into diaspora and uprooting from homeland the poet and his fellow countrymen were exposed to. In addition, the poet’s self-narrative reveals, at the same time, his perception of various issues such as death, love, homeland, language, time, existence, and his view of the other; issues that are closely related to life in exile that both the poet as an individual and his community have experienced. The poet’s biography also portrayed to a large extent, his vision, and the horizons he aspires to reach in this stage of his creative writing.