Mahmoud Darwish and Tanure Ojaide

Darwish, the spokesman of Palestine, and Ojaide, the voice of Nigeria, are endowed with a faculty for articulating a message, a vision or an opinion for their nations. They are intellectuals essentially tied to the needs of their communities. Both poets belong to countries that witnessed different...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Ghada A. Mohammad, Wafaa A. Abdulaali
Format: Article
Language:deu
Published: University of Ljubljana Press (Založba Univerze v Ljubljani) 2020-06-01
Series:Ars & Humanitas
Subjects:
Online Access:https://journals.uni-lj.si/arshumanitas/article/view/9359
_version_ 1797950125590446080
author Ghada A. Mohammad
Wafaa A. Abdulaali
author_facet Ghada A. Mohammad
Wafaa A. Abdulaali
author_sort Ghada A. Mohammad
collection DOAJ
description Darwish, the spokesman of Palestine, and Ojaide, the voice of Nigeria, are endowed with a faculty for articulating a message, a vision or an opinion for their nations. They are intellectuals essentially tied to the needs of their communities. Both poets belong to countries that witnessed different types of political, economic, and social turmoil. They inspire the oppressed nations to persist in their struggles against the regimes which deprive them of their right to live happily and peacefully. Darwish experienced many displacements that turned him into an embodiment of exile, in both existential and metaphysical terms, beyond the external, and the metaphorical, in his interior relations with self and poetry. His poetry of exile mirrors the socio-political atmosphere under the Israeli occupation. He utilizes poetry as a weapon in his fight to achieve freedom and independence. Similarly, Ojaide’s poetry is engaged with the crises of his homeland, the Niger Delta. He belongs to the generation of Nigerian writers who used their literary productions as a weapon against social injustice and an instrument in resisting imperialism. To him, there is a direct relationship between literature and social institutions. The principal function of literature is to criticize these institutions and eventually bring about desirable changes in society. This study aims at examining Darwish and Ojaide as poets of exile by observing their exilic experiences and investigating certain poems that typically help dive into their external and internal sense of displacement. The study also highlights the concepts of home and homelessness. It brings to light the poets’ deep yearning for a sense of belonging and their insistence on regaining the motherland toward which they show a profound attachment and permanent commitment. They use words as a therapeutic means to compensate for the lack of a physical homeland. A comparison between the two poets is also provided.
first_indexed 2024-04-10T22:10:15Z
format Article
id doaj.art-c60a06733eb644b7b1814864c982823c
institution Directory Open Access Journal
issn 1854-9632
2350-4218
language deu
last_indexed 2024-04-10T22:10:15Z
publishDate 2020-06-01
publisher University of Ljubljana Press (Založba Univerze v Ljubljani)
record_format Article
series Ars & Humanitas
spelling doaj.art-c60a06733eb644b7b1814864c982823c2023-01-18T08:53:00ZdeuUniversity of Ljubljana Press (Založba Univerze v Ljubljani)Ars & Humanitas1854-96322350-42182020-06-0114110.4312/ars.14.1.41-53Mahmoud Darwish and Tanure OjaideGhada A. Mohammad0Wafaa A. Abdulaali1Open Educational College, Nineveh, IraqUniversity of Mosul, College of Arts, Iraq Darwish, the spokesman of Palestine, and Ojaide, the voice of Nigeria, are endowed with a faculty for articulating a message, a vision or an opinion for their nations. They are intellectuals essentially tied to the needs of their communities. Both poets belong to countries that witnessed different types of political, economic, and social turmoil. They inspire the oppressed nations to persist in their struggles against the regimes which deprive them of their right to live happily and peacefully. Darwish experienced many displacements that turned him into an embodiment of exile, in both existential and metaphysical terms, beyond the external, and the metaphorical, in his interior relations with self and poetry. His poetry of exile mirrors the socio-political atmosphere under the Israeli occupation. He utilizes poetry as a weapon in his fight to achieve freedom and independence. Similarly, Ojaide’s poetry is engaged with the crises of his homeland, the Niger Delta. He belongs to the generation of Nigerian writers who used their literary productions as a weapon against social injustice and an instrument in resisting imperialism. To him, there is a direct relationship between literature and social institutions. The principal function of literature is to criticize these institutions and eventually bring about desirable changes in society. This study aims at examining Darwish and Ojaide as poets of exile by observing their exilic experiences and investigating certain poems that typically help dive into their external and internal sense of displacement. The study also highlights the concepts of home and homelessness. It brings to light the poets’ deep yearning for a sense of belonging and their insistence on regaining the motherland toward which they show a profound attachment and permanent commitment. They use words as a therapeutic means to compensate for the lack of a physical homeland. A comparison between the two poets is also provided. https://journals.uni-lj.si/arshumanitas/article/view/9359exilepoet of exileoppressionhomelanddisplacementloss
spellingShingle Ghada A. Mohammad
Wafaa A. Abdulaali
Mahmoud Darwish and Tanure Ojaide
Ars & Humanitas
exile
poet of exile
oppression
homeland
displacement
loss
title Mahmoud Darwish and Tanure Ojaide
title_full Mahmoud Darwish and Tanure Ojaide
title_fullStr Mahmoud Darwish and Tanure Ojaide
title_full_unstemmed Mahmoud Darwish and Tanure Ojaide
title_short Mahmoud Darwish and Tanure Ojaide
title_sort mahmoud darwish and tanure ojaide
topic exile
poet of exile
oppression
homeland
displacement
loss
url https://journals.uni-lj.si/arshumanitas/article/view/9359
work_keys_str_mv AT ghadaamohammad mahmouddarwishandtanureojaide
AT wafaaaabdulaali mahmouddarwishandtanureojaide