The Modern Subject Sensing its Agency: Khalīl al-Khūrī’s Aesthetics of “Truth Mingled with Passion”

In the introduction to what is often labelled “the first Arabic novel”, Khalīl al-Khūrī’s Way, idhan lastu bi-Ifranjī (1859), the author not only criticises contemporary Westernisation, but also outlines a new aesthetics that integrates authenticity, logical plausibility, and passion (hawas). This article explains how al-Khūrī’s advocacy of the “indigenous way of life”, literary authenticity, and an emotionalisation of writing belong together. They spring from the same source, just as does the temporalisation inherent in the nahḍa’s predilection for plot narratives: the modern subject beginning to sense its agency and seeking to assert itself.