The Evolution of the Aesthetic Vision in Kabbani’s Poetic Discourse

Abstract

If poetry is the verbal art of beauty, and beauty is truth, then, poetry has its own truth which is universal by nature since the poetic patterns embody a particular vision of the universe. This universal truth is encoded in poetic image. The poet who creatively used the poetic image to express his aesthetic vision is Nizar Kabbani (1923- 1998). The study aims at exploring the development of the notion of beauty as structured in the modern Arab poetic works. It aims at investigating Kabbani’s poetic imagery in its amorous-erotic aspects. The study proceeds with the hypothesis that the modern love poet’s synesthetic imagery is an impressive representation of Kant’s aesthetic axioms as encoded in his Critique of the Aesthetic Judgment. The scope of the inquiry focuses upon the love lyrics and songs of the modern Arabic love poet regardless his political writings. Kabbani’s poetics is investigated in terms of Aesthetic Cultural Approach (ACA), a critical orientation that links the cultural patterns of meaning to the aesthetic structures of the poem. Of the seminal findings of the study is that Kabban’s love poems are pleasurable moments in which the body of the beloved becomes the source of the poet’s ecstasy and joyfulness.