Al-Fārābī’s Poetics Reconsidered

Abstract

The primary goal of this paper is to read al-Fārābī’s Kitāb al-shiʿr [Book of poetry] between the lines. Though it touches upon his other treatises on poetry and poetics, i.e., Risāla fī qawānīn ṣināʿat al-shuʿarāʾ [Essay on the rules of the art of the poets] and Qawl al-Fārābī fī al-tanāsub wa-l-taʾlīf [al-Fārābī’s saying on harmony and composition), it does so only in passing. Emphasizing the primacy of mimesis (muḥākat) in al-Fārābī’s discussion of poetics, this paper demonstrates how poeticity (shiʿriyya), according to al-Fārābī, goes beyond being a mere “textual” or “oral” quality to even encompass various human actions and activities. In doing so, it also underscores how al-Fārābī’s definition(s) of mimesis is not reducible to comparison, simile, metaphoror even the extended metaphor.