The emergence of criticism in the Arab novel was not by chance but rather has roots dating back to 1899. The earliest attempt came with Salim Al-Khouri in an essay where he discussed the novel's role in refining morals, followed by Najib Jawish, who stated: "It is known that novels refine morals." In this context, researcher Ibrahim Khalil's study, titled "The Structure of the Novel Text," provides a valuable resource for literary criticism enthusiasts, shedding light on critical currents and schools such as socio-historical, textual, structural, and anatomical criticism. Critics are divided between those focusing on novel theory and others on narratology. The researcher illustrates the influence of foreign factors on Arab novelists, reflected in the novel's structure, artistic architecture, narrative techniques, content, or affiliation to European schools like realism represented by Balzac and Flaubert, or naturalism found in works of Emile Zola or Edwardian English novelists like Galsworthy and Bennett. The study is divided into eight chapters with methodical titles starting with the first chapter on the theoretical legacy of the novel, second: narrator, third: time-narrative-form, fourth: novel-space-place, fifth: character-presentation-classification, sixth: text-organization-plot, seventh: novel and language, eighth: novel and reader.

Publishing house: Dar Al-Arabiya for Sciences / Lebanon

Number of Pages: 319

Year of publication: 2009