Poetry and Prose and the Compound in Abu Sulayman Al-Sijistani

Abstract

This study reveals Abu Sulayman Al-Sijistani's unprecedented approach in regard to poetry and prose and the relationship between them, allowing them to undergo logical standards by borrowing some ideas from Aristotle’s books The Poetics and Rhetoric through the ancient Arabic translations, explanations, and summaries of them by Muslim philosophers. The end result is that Sijistani presented deep critical insights about the essence of poetry and prose, the functions assigned to them, and the expected results of their creative material. This theoretician also spoke of a new type of speech, which he referred to as "Almorakab Minhoma": “The compound,” which was a product of his fertile thought, and which he advocated, considering it the kind of speech where preferences among writers occur, surpassing such preferences that are steered by self-interest or external social and cultural factors. With that, he recorded a quality contribution in the dialectical circle about the relationship between poetry and prose and the preference of one over the other Keywords: Poetry, Prose, Aristotle, Sijistani, Compound.