كلية الآداب | College of Arts

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Mourning the Leader: Trauma in Selected Elegies by Hassan bin Thabit and Walt Whitman: A Comparative Study
(2022) Aljabrin, Sahar Rashid; ياسر خميس رجب
This thesis applies Literary Trauma theory using a psychoanalytic approach to compare Ḥassān bin Thabit’s selected elegies on prophet Muḥammad and Walt Whitman’s on Abraham Lincoln. The poets’ human experience, translated through their poetic elegies, in losing a great leader provides a valuable case study in the field of comparative literature. Despite living in different historical epochs and within different geographical borders, belonging to different cultures, and being surrounded with different political climates, there are many similarities in their poems worth exploring. Underlining the differences among the selections and shedding the light on psychological and cultural aspects behind their divergences offer valuable outcome. Using contemporary literary theory opens the opportunity for rediscovering thematically similar Arabic and English classics to reveal different dimensions. A psychoanalytic approach using trauma theory unravels how these elegiac masterpieces conveyed the grief of entire nations. The first chapter in this thesis presents a literature review on Trauma Literary theory and elegy. Chapter two discusses the similarities among Ḥassān and Whitman’s selected elegies. Chapter three finally highlights the differences among these poems.