Wasini Al-A’raj’s Al-Bayt Al-Andalusi:A Critical Analytical Study

This thesis is a thorough study of Wasini Al-A’raj’s novel Al-Bayt Al-Andalusi (The Andalusian House, 2011). The researcher specifically made an analysis of its significant aspects, and revealed the intellectual and literary culture of the novelist. He also showed the link between this culture and the writer’s other works as well as the aesthetics of the narrative text in the said novel. The study fell into an introduction, three chapters and a conclusion. In the introduction, the researcher highlighted the significance of this novel, and the reasons behind its selection. He also provided a review of related literature on the novel, a recapitulation of the novel and the methodology used in his study. The first chapter was devoted to the relationship between Al-A’raj’s novel and Spain’s Cervantes’s Don Quixote highlighting the areas of similarity between the two novels in terms of form/style and content. This was in addition to the study of the relationship (called in literary studies intertextuality) between this novel and the writer’s previous novels. To this end, the researcher dwelt on Raml Al-Maya and Harisat Athil. The second chapter dwelt on the subjects of the novel. The researcher first looked at the novel title and its connection with the body of the novel. He studied the setting of the novel and highlighted its symbolic dimensions. He also illustrated the historical make up which has characterized it. The researcher concluded the chapter with an analysis of the major characters, highlighting their role in embodying some other events. In the third chapter, the researcher addressed the artistic form of the novel limiting himself to narrative discourse, time and its significance, beauty of the narrative language and technique of description. In the conclusion, the researcher presented some of the important findings of the study, the special status the novel has enjoyed among the novelist’s other novels. The researcher concluded that Al-A’raj’s narrative writing is characterized by common style of writing. He also uses one narrative style, similar narrative and dialogue language.