ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz Ḥammouda’s Modernist Critical Theory as a Combination of Classical Arab Heritage and Modernist Western Culture

Abstract

The Egyptian critic ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz Ḥammouda grew in an important period of the twentieth century that is characterized by benefitting from the Western critical theories. The Arab critics’ responses to them varied in attitude and interaction. In that period, the Arab critic stood at a sharp turning point, torn by his desire to keep up with modernism, and his tendency to create an Arab modernism that establishes a modern critical method. Western modernism fascinated a lot of Arab critics and thus, it prevailed and abolished the identity of the classical and modern Arab critic, who got lost amidst the various critical trends. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz Ḥammouda’s project embodied one of the most important theoretical references of modern Arab criticism in which he drew from the Arab classical culture and Western cultural wells, combining between the originality of the Arab heritage and the modernism of the incoming Western knowledge. This study discusses in detail Hammouda’s theory and makes conclusions, which are mainly based on his views in his two main books: al-Maraya al-Muḥadaba. Min al-Bunyawiya ila al-Tafkikiya (1999), which was considered by some critics to be antagonistic to the modernistic critics; and al-Maraya al-Muqa ʿara naḥwa Naẓariya Naqdiya ʿArabiya (2001). The study concludes that Ḥammouda’s theory constitutes a visionary promising solution that can help get the modernist Arab critics and criticism out of their labyrinth.