Cognitive Narratology and the Neurology of Reading in Adnan Al-Sayegh’s The Omitted from The Epistle of Forgiveness

A Foundational Study in Contemporary Arabic Literary Criticism

Abstract

  This study seeks to establish a contemporary Arabic critical approach by intersecting cognitive narratology with the neurology of reading in analyzing Adnan Al-Sayegh’s poem The Omitted from The Epistle of Forgiveness. The research is grounded in the premise that the poetic text is not merely a rhetorical or aesthetic construct but also a cognitive structure that activates mechanisms of memory and emotion, reshaping the relationship between reader and poem.

  Drawing on cognitive models such as event indexing, deictic shift, theory of mind, and embodiment, the study demonstrates how textual units unfold into eventful scenes that accumulate into five emotional peaks and a concluding climax. These culminations reconfigure the meaning of justice within a tense poetic and cultural horizon, showing how the poem operates by shifting addressees, altering goals, and attributing mental states, thereby making the reader an active partner in interrogating contemporary political, cultural, and religious values.

  Accordingly, the research represents a foundational attempt to broaden the horizons of Arabic criticism toward a cognitive-contextual analysis that re-reads poetry as an integrated mental, bodily, and cultural experience.