The Prelude of the Poem in Ashjaʿ Al-Sulami: An Analytical Study

Abstract

This paper studies the thematic and structural aspects of the first part of a number of poems composed by the poet Ashjaʿ Al-Sulamī in an attempt to understand the poet's method of introducing his poems and the reason behind the differences from one poem to another. More importantly, it examines and evaluates the poet's role in renewing and inventing this vital part of the classical Arabic poem. Additionally, by taking into consideration the political atmosphere in which the poet lived, this research presents a new interpretation of how the motif of ruined abodes by the poet is sustained and employed. As an essential entry to the main argument, this paper presents several interpretations by some of the early as well as modern Arabic critics to discover the reason underlying the continuity of the existence of the motif of ruined abodes in the Abbasid poems, despite the change in life-style from an unsettled nomadic life in the Jahilī period to a settled and civilized life in the Abbasid period.