ظاھرۃ غیاب وحضور المسرح العربي : دراسۃ نظریۃ تحلیلیۃ تاریخیۃ

Abstract

Arabic literature throughout the ages has been proud of its lyric
poetry, rhetoric, oratory and the sciences of language, especially in
the Middle Ages when the European literatures were far from this
lofty position. However, Arabic literature, from the beginning till its
renaissance period, had been lacking the most highly regarded
literary genre in world literature, i.e. drama. Despite the fact that
drama was absent in the Arab world until 1848, the critics are in total
disagreement about the existence of drama in the pre-renaissance
period of Arabic literature. Therefore, this aspect is still worthy of
study and research. Hence, the study deals with this issue
theoretically, historically and analytically. In order to do so- firstly, it
sheds light on the theories of drama in short, secondly, it analyses
the arguments presented by the both groups in light of the theories,
and finally, addresses some problems related to modern Arabic
drama and tries to find some solutions to them. As for some major
findings of the study, it has reached the conclusion that,
theoretically, there were some important harbingers of drama in the
pre-renaissance period of Arabic literature. It is expected that the
present study would benefit the students of drama in general and
those of Arabic drama in particular, especially it would show them
how to analyse this long disputed issue in light of the theories of
drama.