Thesis (M.A.) - Cairo University - Faculty of Arts - Department of English

This study attempts to provide insights into the manner in which a stylistic examination of the linguistic tools employed in Gibran{u2019}s The Prophet and Rihani{u2019}s A Chant of Mystics support the presentation and interpretation of the theme of mysticism. This is done through analyzing the stylistic devices used in eight poems in Gibran{u2019}s collection and four parts of Rihani{u2019}s lengthy title poem. The main research question is how the theme of mysticism is revealed in the poems of Gibran and Rihani. The answer is provided in responding to four research sub-questions on the frequency of the processes used, the participants and circumstances involved, the deictic elements employed, and the cohesive devices used to create unity. From the available linguistic approaches to stylistics, the study adopted functional stylistics, providing a detailed analysis of the data in terms of Halliday{u2019}s FG, in addition to the deictic elements and cohesive devices employed to express the theme of mysticism. In terms of transitivity, material and relation processes prevailed to describe the influence of the mystical view of the world on the transformation of man{u2019}s life, aided by location and manner circumstances to temporally and spatially universalize the theme and enforce the description of man{u2019}s transformation, respectively. Deictic elements have been examined to point to the mystical references in the poems

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