LITERATURE AND NATION IN THE MIDDLE EAST

darwish’s ‘indian speech’ as dramatic performancecomrades were Jewish. I did not look on Jews as a separate entity. From the beginning,for me, coexistence has seemed possible both psychologically and culturally. The mainproblem is political. (Darwish 2000: 45) [Emphasis added]Where others might be overwhelmed by the cognitive dissonance in aPalestinian-Israeli identity, Darwish has drawn upon this to enrich his style, hislanguage, his imagery, and the myths and symbols he employs, many of whichalso reside in modern Hebrew poetry: ‘What is ironic and inexplicable’, writesMunir Akash in his Introduction to The Adam of Two Edens, ‘is that Darwish’senthusiastic Arab audience accepted these Israeli symbols and myths as anintegral part of Palestinian Resistance Poetry itself!’ (Darwish 2000: 21). Perhapsnot so inexplicable when the pains of the Palestinian national experience arecompared with those of Jewish national history: loss of lands, culture, familyand identity are shared historical realities for both.While the political has been ever-present in Darwish’s writings throughoutthe past thirty years, he has often (as Akash notes) drawn on ‘myths’ and otherliterary and cultural traditions to expand the range of his own expression. Fluentin French and English as well as his native Arabic and Hebrew, he readsconstantly, fully engaged in new literary trends and movements. As well, he dipsinto the past, drawing uponEpic, mythic, historic, ritualistic, hymnal, divinely radiant and prophetic [traditions],as found in The Epic of Gilgamesh, Inanna, Dumuzi’s Dream, The Descent of Ishtarto the Nether World, The Egyptian Book of the Dead, and the Biblical Book ofJeremiah … [Hence, while hailed by Palestinians as a resistance poet], it often seemsthat his work stands out best when read in the context of Yeats, Saint-John Perse, theSurrealists, the Greeks, or the Hebrews. (Darwish 2000: 39)His is a coherent eclecticism. Whether consciously or not, Darwish exploresthe dimensions of Palestinian identity through the incorporation of myth andtradition which speak metaphorically. Myths of lost realms, such as Adam’sexpulsion from Eden, speak for the Palestinian experience – as do myths whichembody life’s possibilities such as those of the Sumerian and Canaanite Moongoddesses. More recently, the American continent has provided a mythology forDarwish’s metaphors when he encountered Native American spirituality. This,coupled with the historical record of the Native American experience with the‘West’, led him to contemplate the extent of their loss. Reflections on themeaning of historicity within this context, ‘enabled the exiled poet’s imaginationto respiritualize the Palestinian universe in a healing way …’ (ibid.: 40).The narrative poem ‘Indian Speech’ (Darwish 1993: 59–84) is one outcome ofthis creative cross-cultural reflection. Published in 1992, it speaks not only tothe universal condition of man, but metaphorically to the particular concerns ofthe Palestinians, concerns which reflect the reality of life under an occupation— 81 —www.taq.ir