The Phenomenon of Arabic Poetry Embellishments among Poets & Narrators up to the 4th Century AH

Abstract

Many single narrations of one and the same line of old Arabic poetry, especially the Pre-Islamic, are not different because of lapses of memory as commonly thought. In fact, they are often due to intentional attempts on part of the narrators in question to introduce some improvements, starting from Pre-Islamic poetry up to the age of documentation of such earlier poems. Based on recurrent news of such attempts or even, sometimes, documented confessions of these attempts, the present research adopts a comparative analytical approach, along with the citation of other new examples of the abovementioned attempts. Indeed, these improvements or embellishments stem from linguistic, musical, semantic and aesthetic considerations. Yet, the researcher firmly deems that academic considerations, on top of which comes authenticity, the original poems or poems should be maintained with no changes or modifications. Keywords: Pre-Islamic poetry, Narration, Rationale of Poetic Improvements, Rationale of Poetry Embellishments.