Analysis of defamiliarization in ‘Alhurria’ as composed by Ahmad Matar within the Context Theory framework

Analysis of defamiliarization in ‘Alhurria’ as composed by Ahmad Matar within the Context Theory framework. The term ‘defamiliarization which usually appears in the formalists’ works is in fact a major item of their literary theory and implies the application of expressions and strategies to make the discourse as ‘literary’; in other words, it attempts to make the perception of words as unconventional, unusual and unfamiliar. The basic tenets of formalistic theories mainly rely on the criticism of the ‘form’. In this view, form means any element which can create a cohesive composition in relation to other interrelated elements provided that each element plays its role in the whole system. In this way, every part of the text like imagery, prosodic meter, rhyme, syntax, syllables, voiced and voiceless consonants, figures of speech, etc. constitutes the form. It focuses on the intertextual elements and attempts to uncover defamiliarization realizations of the text; therefore, it overlooks issues like the author’s character, and social and historic contextual factors surrounding the literary work. On the other hand, linguistic forms and properties are analyzed so as to examine the cohesion and literary aspects of the text. Since its formulation by Shkolovsky, the Russian formalist critic, defamiliarization has attracted many critical formalism adherents. In other words, formalism embraces the Context Theory and analyzes the literary text including its lexical items, grammatical structure, rhetorical devices and phonological properties. The term ‘context’ has attracted a lot of attention in modern linguistics. In general, a context can be viewed from both linguistic and extralinguistic perspectives. Extralinguistic context refers to the outside of the text conditions affecting and crystalizing the author’s words. In addition to out of the text factors, linguistic function of each textual element in lexical, syntactic, semantic and phonological levels can be analyzed in relation to the linguistic aspects of the text and the way they affect the literary work.

The present study, hence, enjoyed a descriptive-analytical research method and a formalistic theoretical framework to show linguistic and inner representations of defamiliarization in ‘Alhurria’ as composed by Ahmad Matar. This piece of poem is composed of lexical items which conceptualize freedom. The poet attempts to illustrate himself or any other free person as a driven away captive distressed by the confinement sufferings. The first representation of defamiliarization in ‘Alhoriah’ can be seen in an overall perspective it presents. It means that the poet gives such an uncommon picture of freedom that one can live a free life even in captivity. Purposeful selection of some lexical items has made the poet’s language as distinguished and prominent. In addition, with respect to defamiliarization features represented in the preceding analysis, it seems that the concept of freedom is depicted such a way that, in depth of captivity and confinement, one can live a free life. Such a freedom cannot be interpreted as the liberation of man’s body from chains and shackles. It is, on the other hand, faith crystalized in the character and nature of the liberated man, spreading over other organs of his body in a way that even the most evident human emotions originated from sorrows and anguish, anxiety and mental confusion are conceptualized very differently from the way they are conventionalized in the native’s beliefs. In symbolic imagery, this concept shows itself as a drop of tear released from the prison of an eyelid as if destiny and the end of all captives ended in liberation, liberation from both material and spiritual imprisonment. This way, defamiliarization offers a far-fetched unconventional imagery of liberty, for the poet has revealed the concept of freedom as a fantastic idea to show that it can be perceived even in depth of captivity. By using verbs with a special semantic load and with a gentle and purposeful arrangement of words next to each other and its coexistence with emphatic letters at the syntactic level, the intensity of defamiliarization of the text of the poem has been increased. Also, in order to induce the sense of violence, suffocation and unpleasantness of captivity and the sense of pleasantness and continuity of freedom, letters have been used in each of the words that phonetically correspond to the linguistic context of the text. The results indicated that the concept of liberty and its confrontation with captivity is depicted unconventionally in this poem. Purposeful selection and arrangement of phonemes, lexical items and rhetorical devices tend to support defamiliarization throughout the text. the Keywords of this study are formalistic criticism and literary defamiliarization and context, and Ahmad Matar and Alhurria.