Time and Place in the Poems of Mudhaffar al-Nawwab

The place is considered as substantial element in the poems of the Iraqi poet Mudhaffar al-Nawwab who had spent most of his life outside Iraq for his struggle and anti-government poems, defending all oppressed. His poems are full of symbolic phrases describing different places and time.

In this study we will focus on all time and place symbols used in al-Nawwab’ poems according to descriptive and analytic method, and all results refer that the pLaces and times used in his poems are not restricted to Iraqi places and times, they rather include other Arabic, foreign and Iranian places and times. The place in the view of al-Nawwab passes the geographical dimension and the time passes its traditional meaning, and thus, al-Nawwab could add new dimensions and roles to them. Moreover, the place according to al-Nawwab’s idea plays a physical role presented in exiling al-Nawwab from his homeland, and the places hold a patriot role when he describes his love to his motherland and when he dream to return to it.

The place also plays its social role when al-Nawwab presents the description of the Iraqi society in his poems, and when he uses slang words he narrates about science and scientists and other prominent characters. Here too, the place plays political, historical and religious role represented in jails, oil, those who practice policy and ruling in the Arabic world, and the Palestinian crisis, especially when al-Nawwab present the places with their historical and religious events and characters. The place also holds a symbolic and legendary role represented by desert, graves and seas. The poet also talks about the tyrannical and occupational era, and the time of opposite. The time in the view of al-Nawwab represents an unlimited Hour, it could be the night which refers to the Arab’s dark reality, or the time of defeat, suppress, killing, and heavy relics, and ends with liberty, honor and independence.

The language used in al-Nawwab’s poems is the language of time because it can obviously specify the time and puts it in poetic pictures full of sorrow points penetrated by hope threads.