Narrative allusion and borrowed time, by: Abdulrahman Hallak

Criticism is not merely grammatical or morphological analysis of the narrative, nor is it an explanation of the places where writing techniques are used, as Gerard Genette or others have detailed extensively. Rather, it is primarily clarification and illumination of the message conveyed by the narrative, as well as interpretation and understanding of the meaning of the codes embedded in the literary discourse. In other words, it is what the writer—deliberately or unintentionally—tries to convey as certain convictions to the reader (the recipient) through a discourse that includes a series of clear intentions at times and hidden behind metaphors and semantic shifts at other times. Here lies the writer’s skill in the linguistic construction of the work. It is an attempt at a clever and enjoyable wrapping, emphasizing that the idea (the message) has its own special significance. Language is not merely signs organized into closed units; rather, it is, in the final analysis, discourse that possesses, alongside its formal properties, essential qualities that generate meaning. Paul Ricoeur distinguishes between two branches of science: semiotics and semantics. The first, formal structural science, relies on dividing language into its constituent parts. The second, the science of the sentence, is directly concerned with the concept of meaning—what is the content or (gist). This gist is ultimately what remains in the mind of the reader (the recipient), which makes him in a state of dialogue and interaction with the text (the discourse). Number of pages: 174