SOAS Research Online

Abstract

This study endeavours to contribute to the sociology of literature through its analysis of the process of individuation in three distinct literatures, one western and two Arabic. The overarching aim of this thesis is to link the process of individuation to the literary genre of the novel, and demonstrate how one can probe certain aspects of individuation through the study of the novel. This particular approach facilitates a significant dialogical interaction between the process of individuation and the genre of the novel. By contextualising each writer in his specific literary field of production one is able to identify the specificity of his literary contribution, in the process of shaping personal identity. The introduction outlines the theoretical framework and argues that literary texts are immersed in a complex social network of power relations relevant to perceptions of identity, the process of individuation and the psychology of the individual, by linking them to the complex process of modernity. The study grounds its investigation in the most sophisticated theories in the sociology of cultures, identity and literary theory through the work of Pierre Bourdieu, Stuart Hall, Anthony Giddens, Rene Girard, and Mikhail Bakhtin. By doing so it avoids the normative and simplistic understanding of the process of individuation, and the genre of the novel. It views the modem novel as immersed in a complex social network of power relations (Bourdieu), relevant to perceptions of identity (Hall), and the process of individuation and the psychology of the individual (Girard), interwoven into the fabric of the complex process of modernity (Giddens) and articulated in the modem novel due to its polyphony of voices (Bakhtin).