AL-GHAZAL – ARABIAN LOVE POEM IN THE PRE-ISLAMIC AND UMAYYAD PERIOD

Abstract

The paper treats the Arabic love poetry and its main features in the pre-Islamic and Umayyad period. The formation, development and characteristics of this poetry are closely related to the nature of the poet, as well as the place of its origin. Based on this, we distinguish between urban and desert ghazals. From the point of stylistic peculiarities, as well as the poet‘s commitment to the aim of his poetry, urban ghazals are equalled with hedonistic and desert ghazals with uzrit or Platonic ghazals. The origins date back to the early periods and the beginning of the Arabic literary tradition. And the oldest poems that we have today begin with an introductory love prologue, which had a significant place at the very beginning of the pre-Islamic kasidah and was a prelude to further poet’s singing. The love poem was transferred to the Umayyad period, but in a new form and with new linguistic-stylistic peculiarities, and also, the Umayyad epoch was the period of independence of ghazals as an independent poetic genre. This has put the ghazal in a rightful place in Arabic literature and in the future it will very rarely have the role from the period of a pre-Islamic kasidah, when it was only one sequence in the poet‘s singing. Keywords: ghazal, love poetry, kasidah, hedonistic ghazal, platonic love