SYMBOLISM IN THE NOVELS OF TAWFIQ AL-HAKIM AND V.S. NAIPAUL

Abstract

One of the definitions of Comparative Literature is that it is the transnational, cosmopolitan and multicultural study of the construction and function of literature in different cultures (Bernheimer, 16). Such study crosses linguistic boundaries and considers the transmission of texts across cultures. It is interdisciplinary since it frequently makes use of comparative anthropology, literary criticism and theory, literary movements and forms, translation, gender, race and cultural studies, as well as social and media models. Comparative literature may also tackle the relationship between national literature and other literary systems (Payne, 114). Furthermore, it may tackle other cultural or non-literary productions that are essentially aesthetic and rhetorical. Comparative literature came under the influence of ideological, political, Formalist, feminist, cultural and Post-colonial trends. The relationship between comparative literature and cultural studies

springs from the dialectic of 'text-context' which informs the main debate of comparative literature. The current debate raises the question: Should comparative literature be informed by 'contextualization' or should the best postulate be 'decontextualization' of literature and focussing on its textual, aesthetic and rhetorical aspects? (Riffaterre, 66). In other words, should the approach be extrinsic or intrinsic, or an amalgam of both? It is noteworthy that contextualization, the recreation of the original cultural conditions of a verbal art, is the postulate that underpins cultural studies (Riffaterre, 69). There is an oscillation between the view of literature as a universal civilizing force, regardless of cultural contexts, and as a representational model reflecting cultural distinction and racial subjectivity.