The Real, the Mythic and the Psychic in Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward 2000-1887 and Tawfiq Al-Hakim’s People of the Cave

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Faculty of Women, Ain Shams University

2 Professor of Arabic Literature Department of Arabic

3 Assoc. Prof. of English Literature Department of English

4 English Department Faculty of Women, Ain Shams University

Abstract

This research demonstrates the relationship between the real, the mythic and the psychic elements in Edward Bellamy’s celebrated novel Looking Backward 2000-1887 and Tawfiq Al-Hakim’s well-known play The People of the Cave. First, the research introduces various definitions of the term myth and how it constitutes a fertile soil for writers of all genres of literature. By resuscitating old myths, writers do not mean to imitate those myths but they seek interpretations and solutions to their contemporary issues. Moreover, the research examines the concepts of psychoanalysis, archetypes, collective unconscious as manifested in the writings of Thomas Bulfinch, Joseph Campbell, Sigmund Freud and Carl Gustav Jung for their direct relationship to mythology. While mythology is perceived as a means by which one can have a closer look at religion, culture, history and science, dreams embody the source book that provides one with the knowledge needed to understand the human psyche, its conscious and unconscious states. Then, the research traces the presence of the self, the shadow and the persona archetypes in Bellamy and Al-hakim’s works mentioned above.

Keywords

References

Abraham, Dr. Karl: Dreams and Myths: A Study in Race Psychology.                                  Translated by William A. White, M.D. Washington, New York, The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease Publishing Company, 1913.  First reprinting 1970, Johnson Reprint Corporation.
Allen, Roger: An Introduction to Arabic Literature. Cambridge University Press, N.Y., USA 2003.
Badawi, M M: “A Passion for Experimentation: the Novels and Plays of Tawfiq Al-hakim”. Third World Quarterly, published by Tailor and Francis vol. 10, No. 2 Islam and Politics (Apr., 1988) pp. 949-960.
 ……., …..: Modern Arabic Drama in Egypt. Cambridge University Press, N.Y 1987.
Baldick, Chris: The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms. Oxford University Press, New York 2008.
Barthes, Roland: Mythologies. The Noonday Press, New York, USA, 1991.
Bellamy, Edward: Edward Bellamy Speaks Again! The Peerage Press, Kansas City, Missouri,1937.
……., …..: Equality. Cosimo Classics Books, New York, 2007
……., ……: Looking Backward 2000-1887. Oxford University Press, New York, 2009.
 Beaumont, Matthew:  Utopia Ltd. Ideologies of Social Dreaming in England 1870–1900. Koninklijke Brill NV. Leiden • The Netherlands, 2005.
Bulfinch, Thomas: Bulfinch’s Mythology, The Age of Fable or Beauties of Mythology. Dell Publishing, New York, U.S.A, 1967.
Campbell, Joseph: Pathways to Bliss: Mythology and Personal Transformation. New World Library, California, U.S.A, 2004.
……., …..: The Hero with A Thousand Faces. Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, U.S.A., 2004
……., …..: The power of Myth with Bill Moyers. (Betty Sue Flowers Ed.) Anchor Books Doubleday, New York, London, Toronto, Sydney, Auckland, 1988
Cassirer, Ernest: The Myth of the State. New Haven, Yale University Press, London, U.K, 1961
Coleman, J. A.: The Dictionary of Mythology. Arcturus Publishing Limited, London, U.K, 2007
Crowley, Vivianne: Jungian Spirituality
. FW Media Inc., Cincinnati, OH, U.S.A. 2012
Dant, Tim: Critical Social Theory: Culture, Society and Critique. SAGE Publications Ltd., London, California, New Delhi, 2003
Dowden, Ken : The Uses of Greek Mythology. Routledge, London and New York, 2005
Drabble,  Margaret and Jenny Stringer eds.,: Oxford Concise Companion to English Literature. Oxford University Press, New York, 2003.
Ellwood, Robert : The Politics of Myth: A Study of C. G. Jung, Mircea Eliade, and Joseph Campbell. State University of New York Press, New York 1999.
Franz, Marie- Louise Von: Archetypal
Dimensions of the Psyche. Hambhala ,  Boston & London, 2014.
Frye, Northrop: Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays with a new foreword by Harold Bloom. Princeton University Press, Princeton and Oxford, 2000.
Fudge, Bruce: “The Men of the Cave: Tafsir, Tragedy and Tawfiq Al-hakim”.
Arabica, Vol. LIV, Issue 1 (67-93) Koninklijke Brill NY, Leiden, 2007.
Hendy, Andrew Von: The Modern Construction of Myth. Indiana University Press, Bloomington& Indianapolis, U.S.A, 2001
Jones, Marie D.: The Power of Archetypes. The Career Press Inc. New Jersey, United States, 2017
Jung, Carl Gustav: C.G. Jung Psychological Types. A revision by R.F.C. Hull of the translation by H.G. Baynes With a new foreword by John Beebe. Routledge, London and New York, 2017.Jung Contra Freud. The 1912 New York Lectures on the Theory of Psychoanalysis . With an introduction by Sonu Shamdasani, Translated by R.F.C. Hull. PHILEMQN SERIES, Published with the support of the Philemon Foundation, This book is part of the Philemon Series of the 
Philemon Foundation, Bollingen Series, Princeton University Press, Princeton and Oxford, 2012.
  ……., …..: The Collected Works. Editors Sir Herbert Read, Michael Fordhan, M.D., M.R.C.P. Gerhard Adler, PH.D. Published for Bollingen Foundation by Pantheon Books INC., New York, N. Y. 1961.
……., …..: Memories, Dreams, Reflections by C. G. Jung. Recorded and edited by Aniela Jaffe, Translate from the German by Richard and Clara Winston, Revised edition. Vintage Books, A Division of Random House, Inc. NEW YORK, 1989.
……., …….: The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. Second Edition, Translated by R. F. C. HULL, ROUTLEDGE, London, 1980
M, Emelda.: "Difference Between Fable and Myth."  http://www.differencebetween.net/language/words-language/difference-between-fable-and-myth/. July 12, 2011.
Morales, Helen: Classical Mythology: A Very Short
Introduction. Oxford University Press, Oxford, U.K, 2007
Morgan, Arthur E.: The Philosophy of Edward Bellamy. King’s Crown Press, New York, 2006.
Roudinesco, Élisabeth:  Freud in his Time and Ours. Translated by Catherine Porter. Harvard University Press, U.S.A., 2016.
Shurter, Robert L.: "The Literary Work of Edward Bellamy", American Literature, vol. 5, no. 3 (Nov. 1933), pp. 229–234.
Strauss, Claude Levi: Myth and Meaning. Foreword by Wendy Doniger. Schocken Books, New York, U.S.A, 1995
WILLI, NORA LEE: Looking Back to Bellamy: American Political Theology for a New Gilded Age. University of Illinois at Chicago (Dissertation, 2018)
مجلة البحث العلمي في الآداب
Volume 21, Issue 5
Language and Literature
2020
Pages 52-81

Files

Share

How to cite

Statistics