Suffering and the Sense of Self in Contemporary Tigrigna Poetry (1999-2010): A Mystical Interpretation

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Date

2014-06

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Addis Ababa University

Abstract

This thesis examines the question of human suffering from the viewpoint of the sense of self. To this end, an interpretive framework focused on mystical conception of self is employed. Despite the discrete self of sense perception, the mystical conception of self posits an intuitive experience of self that is progressively inclusive of the other. This experiential conception of self is implicated in the alleviation of human suffering. Such an experientially sensitive epistemology is suitable to literary texts which usually rely more on emotional and intuitive experiences than on empirical or rational explications. Poetic imagery constitutes an important literary tool in unveiling experiential realities that may be elusive to words lacking sensory details and suggestions. In view of this, twenty contemporary Tigrigna poetic texts that deal with the subject of suffering and are imbued with poetic imagery were selected for analysis. The study attempts to discern textual elements that suggest the dissolution or formation of self/other dichotomy and examine how these experiential conceptions of self bear on the text’s representation of human suffering. The results of the study indicate that although there are ample instances that deconstruct the sense perception of a separate self, none of the texts express a sustained and all-inclusive unitive sense of self. Consequently, the texts assume a complex relationship with the question of human suffering. While the alleviation of suffering is implicated in an experience of self/other connectedness, its perpetuation is also implicated in the limitedness and/or unsustainablity of the experience. The suffering implicated in the frustration of the unitive sense of self, however, also suggests a positive experiential implication in the sense that it may urge the experiencers to root their sense of self on grounds that are more inclusive and hence less susceptible to mutability.

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Tigrigna Poetry (1999-2010): A mystical Interpretation

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