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Article: Modernism & metaphor in contemporary Arabic poetry.
- Article from:
- World Literature Today
- Article date:
- March 22, 2001
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2001 University of Oklahoma. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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But metaphorical language is the most important. The right use of metaphors is a sign of inborn talent and cannot be learned from anyone else.
-- Aristotle, Poetics
IN HIS SHORT ESSAY for the "metaphor" (isti`ara, literally "borrowing") entry in the Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature, W. P. Heinrichs aptly laments the remarkable dearth of studies on the nature and function of metaphor in Arabic poetry: "A history of metaphor and its function in Arabic poetry (or literature in general)has not been yet written, and studies of metaphor in circumscribed corpora of texts, such as the oeuvre of a particular poet, are few and far between." Even in S. Moreh's ...