The Rhetorical Fabric of the Traditional Arabic Qasida in Its Formative Stages ─ A Comparative Study of the Rhetoric in Two Traditional Poems by 'Alqama l-Fahl and Bashshar b. Burd

Scholars agree that the rhetorical texture is the major difference between 'Abbasid and pre-'Abbasid Arabic poetry, says Hussein, but some gaps in the scholarship remain to be filled. Most of the studies examine rhetoric in selected and isolated passages, and he believes looking at whole poems provides a more accurate picture of the role rhetoric plays. In addition, the main hypothesis of modern researchers (and of classical scholars) is that rhetoric is more important in the later poetry, so they study that and ignore rhetoric in the earlier poetry. He believes it is impossible to describe the essence of the rhetoric in the 'Abbasid poetry or the difference between it and earlier poetry without analyzing whole poems of both periods. He examines one poem each by 'Alqama l-Fahl (d. ca. 603 AD) and Bashshar b. Burd (d. 167/784) in the traditional qasida form. Annotation ©2016 Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR (protoview.com)