أثر المنهج اللغوي

Abstract

Abstract

This paper investigates "the Effect of the Linguistic Methodology in the Old Arab Criticism". Most of the Scholars who studied poetry were linguisticians before being critics; therefore, their critical judgments were in accordance with the linguistic methodology that prevented them from realizing most of the aesthetic poetic images. They considered the analysis of poetry and its criticism as kind of a lexical work. They, however did not realize the significance of context in the understanding of the effective inspiring meanings of a text through the interrelationship of all the semantic levels. Poetry for them was a general experience that all poets have in common in the same way they share their language. Accordingly, the interpretation of most of the Diwans (collections of poems) was dominated by this methodology. Those scholars were basically concerned with explaining the vocabulary of the poem rather than what the criticism of poetry required them to do to the poetic image and questioning it. Only through the latter did the poetic wit can be explained in terms of the poets' exploiting of the linguistic power of vocabulary.