Text and History in Qassim Haddad’s Chronicles of Majnun Layla

Abstract

This paper presents an investigation of Qassim Haddad’s Chronicles of Majnun Layla by comparing the text with history, noting how the truth is based on texts rather than actual events. The aim is to show the impact of texts on the formation of Arabic poetry at the end of the last century. This research stems from the idea that a poet’s work is based on a purely mental experience that results from reading texts, and the contemplation of the human subject and the nature of its feelings and thoughts, as well as the fact that the truth the poet seeks to embody, as is the case with Qassim Haddad, is related to the mental and emotional state rather than real experience. From this standpoint, the work of Qassim Haddad is interpreted as his wanting to correct what was reported about Majnun Layla; in so doing, he compares the value of this information with the ability to express the human condition, indicating that what happened in history was relevant only in so far as the state of mind produced by this case of love and passion was achieved. The paper consists of three sections. The first is the textuality of the historical story—the historical version is only texts that do not represent historical truth. The second is the text and the historical subjects, which, in the information about Majnun Layla, are nothing but a linguistic textual form and as such their existence in history is unimportant. The third is language and truth; in reading the language in Chronicles of Majnun Layla, it can be seen that it over-stresses the significance of referring to a mental content that embodies the abstract idea of human love without restricting it to a single historical situation.