The Poetics of Resistance in Cyberspace: A Pragmatic Study of Marwan Makhoul's 'Sunday Sermon'

Abstract

The early third millennium has witnessed an inevitable resurgence of "resistance
poetry" in the Arab world, a phenomenon synchronized with contemporary geopolitical
shifts and sociocultural transformations that have redefined the priorities of creative
discourse. However, this renewed presence does not represent a regressive return to
archaic poetic models. Rather, it manifests as a profound epistemological shift, re-
engineering the resistant poetic sign. This allows it to break free from the hegemony of
print media and institutional platforms, anchoring its existence within an interactive
cyberspace that disrupts linear reception, thereby fostering a participatory aesthetic that
transitions the creative impact into the fluidity of digital circulation.
Within this context, the poetic project "Sunday Sermon"[1] reconfigures resistance
poetics through a multimodal pragmatic practice that transcends text-centrism. The
research problem focuses on how the poem employs verbal irony and multimodal
convergence to perform a cross-systemic resistant act. It investigates the efficacy of
speech acts in deconstructing hegemonic discourse and the role of media in
transforming the text into a participatory practice that extends beyond traditional
reception boundaries.
In light of the above, the study addresses the following research questions:
How do "ironic compliance" and pragmatic irony reconstruct the illocutionary force of
the poetic discourse?
To what extent does multimodal engagement (linguistic, visual, musical) contribute to
liberating the poem from linear reception, transforming it into a participatory cyber-
practice that reconstructs collective consciousness?
How does "Sunday Sermon" -as a digital paradigm -succeed in bypassing platform
algorithms and institutional censorship, evolving from an individual poetic text into a
collective narrative of liberation that transcends geographical and institutional borders?