Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- Part I The Poet Between Two Expatriates
- Part II Single and Collective Hero – Humanization, Animalization and Objectification
- Part III Title Indications, Allusiveness and Symbols
- Part IV Textual Openness and Employment of Myths, Religions, and Holy Books
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Summary in Arabic
3 - Symbolic Connotations of Blindness and Vision
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 October 2023
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- Part I The Poet Between Two Expatriates
- Part II Single and Collective Hero – Humanization, Animalization and Objectification
- Part III Title Indications, Allusiveness and Symbols
- Part IV Textual Openness and Employment of Myths, Religions, and Holy Books
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Summary in Arabic
Summary
What demands attention in Janabi’s poetry, especially in the collection Raġba bayna ġaymatayn, are the frequently recurring concepts of blindness and vision. They do not come in a crude and superficial manner, but are accompanied by reflective symbolic connotations that constitute multi-thought contexts. For example, in the “Qaṣīdat al-bayāḍ fī ṭawr annaqāha,” we find that blindness has characteristics that may be strange, but it carries indicative signs, which should be carefully considered to comprehend it, and to demystify it. In the poet’s words, al-‘amā yastabsil (blindness defies boldly), symbolic content can be understood by looking at blindness as being enhanced by the presence of darkness and blackness. These are the words that are repeated in this poem, and it can be said that they reflect the state of reality that the poet observes. Among the notions that are close to blindness are the mistiness of vision and ambiguity, which accompanies the dramatic hero in difficult times. This can be noted when he says: “There is no mistiness that does not become my drinking companion.” In his words, he confirms that when sight reaches the point of satiation, the insight goes away, so it might be supposed that the poet wanted to say that the real blindness is the lack of insight. Thus, it can be said that he glorifies insight, not eyesight:
When eyesight is replete
Insight dies.
When the poetic hero of Janabi expresses what he sees on the frontiers of what he calls “infinite,” it goes beyond the familiar worldly vision. Moreover, sight loses its meaning so that it becomes equal to the lack of sight. Then, is this metaphysical vision an expression of the ultimate insight that surpasses human perception? It is the whiteness’s existence that presents the desired upper world, the opposite of the rejected earth world of blackness:
I see from the infinite boundaries
There, where what you see and what you don’t see are equal
Where the familiar vision ends
And that what follows on the other side
Is a white page
There is no limit to the patience of eternal salvation.
This “white page” refers to the title of the poem, which gives the impression that the work is coherent in terms of the expression “whiteness” and its connotations, which is a part of the equation of vision and blindness.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Poet and ExistenceText Contents and the Interaction of Reality, Myths and Symbols in Hatif Janabi's Poetry, pp. 116 - 130Publisher: Jagiellonian University PressPrint publication year: 2021