The Structure of the Literary Account in the book “Al-Kunnash by Ahmed Zarrouk (d. 899 AH)

Abstract

In narrative studies, accounts represented a structural feature, as the research was limited to the message without delving into the context. The research deals with an account in itself and does not consider the author’s intent and the significance of the biographical, social, and psychological context in it. Rather, the focus will be on the text itself, and the study is based on the assumption that the book Al-Kunnash by Ahmed Zarrouk falls within the ancient Arabic narratives, specifically account narratives since it is a literary genre distributed throughout the entire Arabic narrative canon. Searching for it in an old Libyan book was a goal alone. The Libyan library needs to show the old Libyan narratives and study them. Thus, researching the literature of account in the Kunnash requires two steps: In the first, we prove the account of the narration in al-Kunnash, and in the second, we move on to research its narratology - the narrative of the account - since the account is an utterance made by the narrator that constitutes a speech that he addresses to his narratee. To verify the count of the narration and the extent of its narratology, the research was divided into two parts.  The attribution and the body of the account. The research reached some results among them is that the presence of literary accounts in the Kunnash was confirmed, noting the varying degree of narration in it, the lack of chain of the account, and its dependence in the chain of transmission on hearing phrases. The presence of narrators was in the third person and first-person pronouns, and the multiplicity of narrators ranged between the second and third degrees, Also, the simple structure dominated the account with rapid nature in narration. It is also noticed that the account is based on brevity and conciseness.