The Arabic Prosody. Exploring a Culturally Embedded Approach to the Textual Analysis

Metrical and rhetorical analysis are fundamental to recognize the experimental features of Arabic Literature and Poetics. In particular, a metrical analysis of a poem enables us to evaluate the expressive strategies of an author, therefore observing not only the contents that he conveys through the lyric but also how he chooses to convey them. Metric analysis therefore is a very useful tool also for understanding the differences between poetic genres and making critical considerations on metrical innovative patterns. This brief manual of “applied” Arabic Prosody, inspired by my lectures addressed to The Sapienza PhD fellows (2017), aims to enhance a new approach to the holistic textual analysis of Arabic poetry, pointing out how much critical considerations on a composition depends on the specific employment of aesthetic devises within it. The suggested approach encourages the importance of both theoretically and appliticative in-depht inquiries on Arabic poetics and related meters so as to better explore its aesthetic peculiarities and evolution.