The re-orientalisation of the myth of Adonis in ʿAshtarūt wa-Adūnīs by Ḥabīb Thābit

The paper explores the phenomenon of the reception of the Greek mythical past within modern Arabic literature. In particular, it addresses the reception of the myth of Adonis in the 1948 epic poem ʿAshtarūt wa-Adūnīs of the Lebanese poet Ḥabīb Thābit. After a presentation of the author and its work, the contribution engages a textual analysis that highlights, on the one hand, the traits of continuity and discontinuity with the vast literary tradition concerned with the myth of Adonis, and on the other, the specificity of this work if compared to later samples of Arabic literary production. Indeed, Thābit’s epic poem emerges as the last to face the myth of Adonis without loading it with the symbolism of resurrection, which is typical of the poetic production after the nakbah. As the paper shows, the poet chooses Adonis not so much for his characteristics as for his alleged Lebanese origin. Adonis then is the expedient through which Ḥabīb Thābit can sing about his country, claiming back a mythical past that he believed was part of the Lebanese cultural heritage before being adopted by the Hellenistic-Roman and the European culture.