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Literature and Rhetoric Overview Paper The role of Arabs in the world civilization is closely related to blossom and spread of Islam. Unfortunately, the data concerning pre-Islamic history of literature in Arabian Peninsula is extremely poor and is rich in gaps. However, Arabian literature (predominantly, the poetry) existed before Muhammad (570 - 632). Bedouins contributed to the development of extremely rich and expressive Arabic language. According to the latest data, there are several samples of their oratories, moral dictum's, wise aphorisms and historical narrations.
However, the poetry was one of the most interesting spheres of literature where the spirit of the pre-Islamic culture was clearly seen. The main themes of pre-Islamic poetry were self-praise, toasts and laudation's dedicated to ancient Bedouins tribes, derision and mockery, love (as usually, Bedouins described tragic love and parting), laments about the fallen (such laments were usually written by the poetesses), as well as vivid and ingenious descriptions of the desert rich in dangers and horrors, the nature of which was both coarse and picturesque with its scorching heat in the broiling sun and pitiless cold nights, with thorny bushes and wild animals. The earliest examples of the Arabic poetry are traced back to the beginning of the VI century. No doubts that people tried to write poems much earlier but it seems that so-called classical style, notable for its system of the size, subordinated to strict rules depending on the length of syllables, and the strict rule of rhyme demanding a transparent rhyme during the whole poem (Latham, 155), as well as peculiar stylistic features, ascends only to the VI century. Later on, when the golden age of Arabic poetry was far behind, the philologists collected ancient poems and published them in the form of divans (collections of the works of literature, written by one author or by a group of authors belonging to the same tribe) or anthologies that represented the most significant and noticeable samples of poetry and literature, such as Asmaiat, Muphaddaliat, Muzahhabat, and Muallakat (Leder, 23). Koran had great impact on Arabs.
As far as Koran is considered an ever-living word of Allah, it not only contains the eternal truth, but is the most perfect form of Arabic literature. According to Arabs, Koran is the second to none; it is a consummate mastery, and an unsurpassed work of art and literature. No wonder that those who dared having their doubts of Korans originality were called heretics and blasphemers. The earlier chapters of the book (Sura) (Abu Khadra, 15) where the religious feeling reaches the summit of its fame and where the motifs of inordinate praise of Allah and trembling expectation of the Last Judgment, describe Muhammad as a masterly and talented artist of the human souls. The choice of formal methods of expression same (a peculiar and rhythmical prose borrowed from Arabic soothsayers) witnesses of a completely new stage of Arabic literature. The book is suffused with the spirit of the praiseworthy majesty with an acute selection of words and phrases.
The last chapters are mostly dedicated to the rite and legal devotional duties. In such a way, great influence of Koran on development of Arabic literary style transforms this literary work not only to the cornerstone of Arabic religion, but to the foundation stone of the Arabic literature. The conquest of territories from the Middle Asia to the African coast of the Atlantic brought drastic changes to the social and cultural life of Arabs. However, the conquest didnt bring much pressure to bear upon the Arabic literature, except of some insignificant changes. For example, there were some novelties in literary style of Arabic poets, such as Omar ibn-Abi Rabia, who inspired described romantic and self-willed love; and Caliph al-Valid who replaced classical rhymes with the rhythmical size of national love songs. The same tendency was clearly noticed during the initial period of Abbasid dynasty when Arabic civilization lost specific features of Bedouins origin.
Some poets kept allegiance to principles of the pre-Islamic literary techniques, whereas other poets started to search for new methods of expression, and managed to array the religious, ethical, and philosophical questions into a literary form. Abu-Nova was a typical representative of the so-called new style, as far as he wrote predominantly about the pleasures of sensual love, wine and hunting. However, stylistic tradition treated the servile imitation of the ancient literary works as the supreme literary ideal. One can hardly discover new literary techniques in the numberless divans created during the subsequent centuries. Only two spheres of the poetry neglected the conditionality of widely accepted style: mystical (Sufi) poems and national love songs. The appearance of new meters (i.
e. gazelle a verse form based on the strophe consisting of four verses with refrain) allowed expressing love sufferings and emotional experiences easily and simply. The poetics of gazelle along with the theory of platonic love contributed to the development of Arabic poetry. The adherence of Arabs to sophistically constructed speech predetermined the development of prosaic style, where the manner of writing is appreciated more than the content of the literary work. During the first century of Caliphate, people continued discussing political problems and political rhetoric was very popular. Further, with growth of autocracy it disappeared and all religious, ethical and literary eloquence could be expressed only in such genres like sermon (Hub) (Abbott, 25), monition (mavis), as well as in other moral admonitions and homilies.
The centralization of power strengthened social position of the clerks and officials, who became the main bearers of encyclopedic culture. For example, Amr ibn-Bahr al-Jahiz developed the genre of literature essay and wrote an endless quantity of tractate's rich in anecdotes, scholar quotations and information about different kinds of novelties. He tried to correspond to the Arabic literary ideal (arabs) that required good manners in combination with a proper level of culture and education. Finally, arabs became a combination of Arabic, Persian and Greek principles. A lions share of Arabic literature was dedicated to arabs: collections of anecdotes and aphorisms, sorted under different headings according to certain themes or aspects (i. e.
The Misers Book by Al-Jahiz, The Sources of Stories by ibn-Kutaiba, etc). In its inclination to the purely formal perfection Arabic literature turned to rhythmical prose. This style reached its blossom in so-called makes. Makamat is one of the most popular books of that kind. However, Arabs were not very successful in individual authorship in epos, fiction literature and drama. The vast majority of Arabic literature works were created like anonymous pieces of literature.
It is peculiar even to those works that made great impact on the world literature. The artistic imagination was used to solve other tasks: for example, Ibn China wrote two novels where the mystical content was hidden under allegories. However, One thousand and One Nights is an unquestionable sample of Arabic fiction literature, diverse in its stylistic and thematic aspects. What concerns Arabic historical narrations, they can be rather related to the chain of stories about the historical events, than to attempts to comprehend a historical development. Geographical narrations in the majority of cases are also narrative and are deprived of any artistic worthiness.
Tractate's and descriptions of visions written by such remarkable mystics like al-Gazali and ibn-al-Arabi, written mostly in educational purposes, are so amazing and so perspicacious in their attempt to understand the spiritual and religious experiences that can be related to one of the most interesting Arabic works of literature. However, the influence of Western civilization on Arabic countries contributed to the headlong decline of Arabic literature. There is no more or less remarkable Arabic poet or writer, except of those who combined the impact of the Western civilization with the political rebirth of the Arabic world. Bibliography Abbott, Nokia.
Studies in Arabic Literary Papyri. III. Language and Literature. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1972. Abu Khadra, F. On Wine in Classical Arabic Literature.
Damascus: The Academy of Arabic Language, 1989. Karbala' in the Shi " ite Literature. Al-Karma: Studies in Arabic Language and Literature, 1992. Latham, Derek. 'The beginnings of Arabic prose literature: the epistolary genre'. The Cambridge History of Arabic Literature. I.
Arabic Literature to the End of the Umayyad Period. 1983. Leder, Stefan. "Classical Arabic prose literature: a researchers's ketch map. " Journal of Arabic Literature 23 (1992): 2 - 26.
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