The duality of the real and the mythic in Resalat al-Tawabe'a and al-Zwabe by Ibn Shahid Al-Andalusi, d. 426 A.H.

Abstract

This article seeks  to reveal the reality of Ibn Shahid’s fictional purposes where his fiction sets off a literary artistic journey to the world of the jinn. The world  where Ibn Shahid  meets with the demons of the great former poets and writers. The study reveals literary texts written  in a narrative style that combines the reality of Ibn Shahid and his time with a myth lined with a narrative game based on puns and the use of what is unreasonable to talk about his views in various fields, including his literary and critical opinions, and others fields such as politics and the nature of community awareness and the audience . This is obvious in Ibn Shahid’s attempt to circumvent direct speech and enter into magical worlds and fantasies, in the light of which he expressed serious positions that represented the unspoken in Ibn Shahid’s literary doctrine, and his critical method , and perhaps he found himself in a position to respond publicly to his opponents, so he resorted to this imaginary artistic method in addressing them, which justified his imaginary contents of a miraculous direction, as well as showing his literary ability and his criticism of cultural authority, especially writers and poets.