The Elegiac Poem between Al-Mutanabbi and Al-Sharif Al-Radi A Comparative Aesthetic Study

Abstract

The Arabs of old recognized the beauty of words and their skillful use, and the quality of their structural compositions and imagery. All of these elements combine to form an eloquent literary style that serves as the foundation upon which poets are distinguished, and the basis upon which the judge of literary taste is definitively based. The creator's ability to translate the image from the realm of thought or imagination into the realm of language or existence is the source of the distinction that ranks poets and bestows upon them the distinctions that set them apart from others. This critical process, along with the development of literature, especially in the Abbasid era, became known as comparison, which was also linked to literary plagiarism, which preoccupied critics at that time, resulting in many works, especially what the great critic Al-Amidi produced in his book (The Comparison between Abu Tammam and Al-Buhturi). It is noticeable from the title that the comparison was between two poets, and this art has developed remarkably in the modern era, which has led some writers to compare more than one poet. However, this simple work of ours follows the tradition of the ancients in comparing two poets. We have chosen two poets who hold a prominent place in our literary history: Abu al-Tayyib al-Mutanabbi and al-Sharif al-Radi.We are not attempting a general comparison between them, but rather we have chosen one of the themes in which they excelled: the theme of elegy. From among their elegies, we have chosen their poem lamenting the death of their mothers, highlighting the hidden beauty within it.