Resistance and Nationalism in the Poetry of Mahmoud Darwish

Mahmoud Darwish is Palestine's most eminent poet and his works have gained wide recognition throughout the Arab-speaking world. His poems are dramatic and realistic portrayals of an intense life within a war zone. As a poet of Palestinian pain, his works are diverse and politically motivated, evoking a history of a political and religious struggle against forgetfulness, exile and uprootedness, and searching for freedom and an identity. Darwish is often remembered for being the Palestinian national poet who played a key role in articulating Palestinian identity and the voice of Palestinian people. Yet, the scanty literature on Darwish's poetics reveals that scholars tend to under-emphasize the nationalistic aspect of Darwish's poetry and wrongly assume that his poetics are first and foremost concerned with humanist and universalist assumptions. He became the voice of the suffering, of the lost land, of those waiting for peace and reconciliation. He managed to give expression in words to this land, beyond countries and peoples.