Categorizing Collective Narrative Texts -A Case Study of "Kahanouf" novel-

Abstract

This research aims to demonstrate that the collective writing of a singular narrative text results in a significant condensation of the interplay of literary genres, leading to a destabilization of its belonging to any of the recognized narrative genres. Proving this necessitated the adoption of (Structural Poetics) and (Textual Analysis) following the perspective of (Roland Barthes) as methodological procedures to examine the possibility of categorizing the collective narrative text. We have chosen "Kahanouf " as a field of application because it represents one of the most collectively written narrative texts, with nineteen writers collaborating in its composition. In order to categorize this collective text, it was imperative to begin with a theoretical discussion addressing the following: the distinction between individual and collective composition of texts, collective texts in Arabic literature, the difference between the concept of genre in literary theory and the various proposals for categorization in Structural Poetics and Textual Analysis, implication of categorization transformations, the generic nature of novels, and its modes of categories.

In the applied section, our endeavor focused on categorizing "Kahanouf" following an analysis of its narrative thresholds, mediators, narrators, the protagonist, his locations, voices, and techniques. We concluded that narrative texts are either individual or collective, with collective narratives being either “participatory”, “shared”, or “interactive”. The act of writing "Kahanouf" was indeed a collective participatory literary act that worked towards destabilizing the familiar narrative structure found in individual texts. Instead, it replaced it with a holistic structure that brought the text together in a duality of impasse and resolution, through the interplay of genres, themes, and techniques that led to propose a new category of "Kahanouf" which we have termed: “The Archipelago Novel”.