The Music in the Works of Jabra Ibrahim Jabra and the Influence of James Joyce’s Writings

Abstract

This article will examine the intensive use of reference to music in the works of the Palestinian novelist Jabra Ibrahim Jabra. It will show that the reference to music in his works displays two functions: the first is technical in order to stimulate the memory and recuperate distant memories of past events and the second is denotative and interpretative of the text. This paper will show also the impact of James Joyce’s writings on the novels of Jabra in the use of reference to music. Jabra used the reference to music as a creative procedure in his novels; first in A Cry in a Long Night (1946), then in his short story collection Araqwa-Qiṣaṣ Ukhra (1956) and in Hunters in a Narrow Street (1960). Furthermore, his two novels The Ship (1970) and In Search of Walid Masoud (1978) show the highest level of use of reference to music in the Arab novel in general. Refs 16.