The Prose Poem and the Arabic Tradition

Abstract

This chapter turns to the role of the prose poem as a critical framework or lens. The poets/theorists of the Arabic prose poem engaged in a “motivated” reading of the Arabic prose tradition. They turned to the rich tradition of Arabic prose, singling out texts that helped validate the modern prose poem and offer it Arabic legitimacy. The chapter examines the ways in which prose poets appropriated the works of mystics such as al-Niffari (d. 965) and prose stylists such as al-Tawḥidi (d. 1023), writings which share the prose poem’s generic evasiveness, its linguistic ambiguity, and shock effect. I also bring into the discussion work on the Qurʾan as a poetic prose text and explore its usefulness as a lens for approaching the prose poem in Arabic.