Text and the interplay of meaning: a study in the Sumerian mythological space in Dunya Mikhail’s the Iraqi nights

Abstract EN

Many common concepts are not accurate in Arabic critical books either because of translation or the lack of resources.

One is the connection of woman poetry in expressing the inner worlds, emotions and sentiments of a woman with an attempt to impose a culture that challenges the masculine culture.

Dunya Mikhail (1965-) sees that woman can go through all the fields that male poets write in since she believes that there is no difference between the two.

Therefore, a woman can write in every field but she differs in her visions of writing even when she uses the same techniques used by the man.

The question here, what is this different vision of the woman? The answer will be it is the nature of employing thoughts, ideas and their construction in the text.

The most important thing lies in the concentration on certain aspects that form and draw the world from a feminine point of view.

This vision specifically leads us to study Dunya Mikhail's collection of poetry The Iraqi Nights (2013).

One way to penetrate this vision is the domain of mythological space.

It is considered as a world that contains the text and makes an integrative relation between the vision, devises and techniques.

What does mythological space mean? Each completed poetical text has two main worlds; a world that forms the text and a world that furnishes it.

The formed world is created in the mind and the subconsciousness of the poet.

It is an illusionary space.

Whereas the other world is the textual space that is revealed by the drawings of the poems.

It is a textual space.

This study concentrates on the illusionary space because it is the incubator for thoughts and the poetical act of the text.

In The Iraqi Nights, the poet makes use of the Sumerian mythological space whether in characters, symbols, suggestions or written symbols that furnishes the text and creates a new vision concerning the values of life in Iraq specifically after the wars Iraq had undergone.

This paper is divided into an introduction that sheds lights on the concept of mythological space and its types in this collection of poetry.

First section deals with the illusionary space of the text.

The second section studies the techniques of poetical readings as symbols, characters and drawings within the texts.

It ends up with a conclusion that sums up the findings of the study.