Discipline and not disorder In Old Arabic Rythmetic Poems.

Résumé

In compliance with the rules of the narrative, the ancients overlooked the poem's rhythm. By analogy, the modernists allowed metrical interference in support of free verse. However, both ignored the fact that the poet should be in command of his artifact. Arab critics were unanimous in considering both rhyme and rhythm to be the only measure of poetry. Apparently, all seem to have forgotten that if the whole was true, the exceptional and the rare had their rationale too. If the poem is composed according to al Rajez, why bother to prove its turbulent and speedy character by studying its structure? If by analogy, the poem is composed according to al Munsareh meter, why should we confine it to a fixed structure while it is subject to change? If we take these facts for granted, things will be back on the right track, as for as rhythm is concerned. If that was old poetry, is it not better to consider the discipline as a whole, a proof for compactness rather than deviation or interference? We have to be aware of the work of narrators. Are we not concerned with the invalidation of turbulence, interference and the like, which are related to old poetry? However, world literature proves that the further man goes back to the archaic, the closer he gets to the purity and consistency of the poem.

This paper is an objective investigation of the exsisting controversy.