Academic researchers: It is difficult to limit the paths of Arabic poetry
Sharjah, 8 November / WAM / Arab researchers and academics unanimously agreed on the difficulty of determining the paths of development of Arabic poetry due to its multiple sources and continuous transformations throughout the ages, stressing that Arabic poetry remained a mirror of the transformations of consciousness, language and environment from nomadism to the city and from the vertical poem to the prose poem and beyond.
This came during a session entitled “Paths of Arabic Poetry” within the activities of the 44th session of the Sharjah International Book Fair, which was held under the slogan “Between You and the Book” with the participation of Dr. Sultan Al-Amimi, President of the Emirates Writers and Writers Union, Dr. Abdullah Muhammad Salem, Director of the House of Poetry in Nouakchott, and Dr. Saeed Al-Awadi, a Moroccan academic.
Dr. Sultan Al-Amimi pointed out that the beginnings of Arabic poetry are difficult to accurately determine due to conflicting narratives and the multiplicity of oral sources, and that studying the course of the poem is inseparable from the history of the Arabic language and its linguistic development.
Al-Amimi discussed the stages of transformation in the poem’s themes, forms, and meters, citing the revolution brought about by Andalusian stanzas in the structure of Arabic poetry. He touched on the development of the Nabataean poem that appeared four centuries after pre-Islamic poetry, explaining that its presence today in the media and social media represents an extension of a long process of structural, linguistic, and thematic transformations.
He pointed out that Arabic poetry today is experiencing a state of positive anxiety at the level of language and form, with its openness to new topics that reflect its interaction with the times and its constant readiness for transformation.
Dr. Abdullah Muhammad Salem presented a paper entitled “Quick Notes in a Deep Memory,” in which he presented an analytical reading of the path of Arabic poetry from a historical and future perspective, stressing that poetry went through intertwined stages that are difficult to limit within strict temporal divisions.
He pointed out that the modern poem has absorbed social and technical transformations and benefited from the Internet to create new digital and interactive forms, pointing out that the “robot poem” experience will show in the future that poetry can only be produced through human awareness and the individual faculty that transforms language into conscience and meaning.
In his intervention, Dr. Saeed Al-Awadi focused on the semiotic dimension in studying the poem, analyzing the transformations of the poetic form from the ancient analogical structure to the modern linear structure, and linking these transformations to the changing patterns of living and the cultural environment, pointing out that the first poem was built as a “linguistic tent” that reflects the space of the desert, while the modern city produced more flexible and diverse geometric and visual forms.
He explained that studying the poem from the perspective of form and visual space opens a new horizon for critical research because the aesthetic transformations in the structure of the poem reflect the intellectual and social transformations in contemporary Arab culture, where poetry and prose meet in a common area of freedom and experimentation.
- For more: Follow Khaleejion 24 Arabic, Khaleejion 24 English, Khaleejion 24 Live, and for social media follow us on Facebook and Twitter
