The time of poetry in the modern world - Jaber Asfour

And the truth is that the discussions raised by "the era of storytelling" and my responses to them, and the continuation in establishing the meanings and connotations I intend from this era, are what made me replace "the era of storytelling" with the era of narration, and to pair the new title with Naguib Mahfouz's phrase that describes storytelling, or the art of the story in general, as the poetry of modern world, based on what he mentioned in his defense of the art he loved, and dedicated his entire life to it, so the modern world rewarded him with the Nobel Prize. And I think I presented in the new edition of my book "Al-Jadeed" a different foundation for the emergence and development of this art at the same time. It is clear that I am not with the school that believes we imported the art of narration from the West completely, or that the novel "Zainab" in 1913, is the first novel in modern Arabic literature. I am among those who believe that the art of narration was established in Arabic literature as a result of two factors: an internal factor related to the traditions of Arabic storytelling and its various narrative types, starting from historical narration, and not ending with philosophical and Sufi symbolic narration, in addition to epics or popular biographies. And if we deny the existence of this factor, we are contradicted by recognized narrative masterpieces worldwide such as "One Thousand and One Nights" or similar influential works. The second factor is the external factor related to European novels, their traditions, and transformations at the same time. And I think this perspective combines authenticity and modernity in a methodological formulation, not denying the greatness of its narrative appeal and the world's fascination with it, nor denying the long and continuous interaction between the heritage and the incoming in history and through history, in a way that leads to the integration of both perspectives: the art of storytelling, whose signs appeared in the mid-19th century, or in a parallel work, and over the years, this type of narration developed until it rose under the hands of Muhammad Hussein Haykal and his generation, who reproduced the Western European model, in the context of the rise of national consciousness, of which the 1919 revolution was one of its explosions!