A Stylistic Approach to Mahmoud Darwish Poem "Challenge"

Abstract

This research studies Mahmoud Darwish’s poem “Challenge,” from a stylistic point of view to reveal the role of linguistic phenomena in shaping the act of challenge aesthetically despite its bitterness. The poet had directly resisted the occupation, and because of this resistance he suffered various types of torment, including torture, imprisonment, and exile. This poem was his most eloquent expression of what he experienced because of that; however, this expression was not a complaint or a cry, but rather a challenge and rebellion against the executioner. The spirit of challenge appeared as an ontological presence that imbued the poem’s structure to reveal the utmost images of courage. The minor structures, the phonetic level, were integrated with the major structures, the lexical, syntactic, and expressive levels, with the comprehensive style of “parallelism,” combining to draw the maximum extent of the poet’s free spirit that challenges the jailer despite arrest and imprisonment.