Contemporary aspects of Abu Tammam's poetry.

There are ruptures as well as continuities between the old and the new in Arabic poetry. The medieval Arab poet Abu Tammam represents a radical change in Arab poetics and his innovations preserve him as a contemporary in thought and orientation. The article, having introduced the specificity of Abu Tammam, moves to analyze his aesthetics based not on orality but on textuality, transforming the pleasure of hearing into that of reading. Abu Tammam puts on the reader the challenge and burden of deciphering; he addresses his poetry to an educated audience. His use of alliteration strives to highlight significance, his use of juxtaposition serves to foreground dialectics of contrast, and his imagery displaces the common and dominant modes of expression, as the article shows by explication of selected texts.

Salah Salih is researcher and critic who has written a number of studies and research papers published in several books and academic periodicals in the Arab World and the West. He has participated in several conferences and symposia in Syria and other Arab countries. His work focuses on the novel and the plastic arts in the Arab World. Among his books are: Questions of Place in the Novel, Arabic Novel and the Desert, Possibilities of the Text and Visual Poetics (with others). He presently teaches at Kuwait University.

Mouneer Al-Shaa`rani studied calligraphy in Syria and graduated from the college of Fine Arts in Damascus. He worked as a calligrapher, book designer and artist. He has written in the field of Arab-Islamic art and criticism. He has participated in collective and individual exhibitions in the Arab World and Europe.