لُغَةُ النَّقدِ في التُّراثِ النَّقدي العربي حَتَّى نهايةِ العصرِ العبَّاسِي

The language of criticism in the Arab critical heritage until the end of the Abbasid era

Language is the beginning of everything and it is an entrance for reading all texts. Since Arabic culture started and it is still its widest entrance is the linguistic culture, I had a desire to study an entrance that relies on language in its existence; thus, old Arabic criticism represents this linguistic experiment, for it is a text that relies on another linguistic, text that is literature. Therefore my study which is entitled ” Language of Criticism in the Arabic Criticism Heritage till the End of Abbasid Era” came to focus on meanings and thoughts that were expressed by a firm language; for language of literature does not stop at the text boundaries, rather, it trespass to what the literature brought. Thus, it is a language that follows language of literature and it extends to tackle the subjects that were tackled by language of literature. So, poetic language – in one of its phases- stands at the poet’s language who does not often declare what he wants, while language of criticism function to totally clarify an intended language. This all required a method that implies the research material in its time and development; accordingly, the descriptive approach was the most suitable one.
The current research added something new to the human studies field which tackled Arabic heritage which also increased specially what concerns old Arabic criticism. Thus, my study came with a new entrance; that is looking at the criticism text language, stopping at critics’ purposes through analyzing their texts, and finding out new reading for many issues in the Arabic culture .
Therefore, the study tries to link the thought hand between the old and the modern; so, I employed a lot of modern devices such as the poetic and language functions, for it is clear that most modern thought is in link with the old to reveal the fact of the text criticism. Time of the study started from pre Islam, so, I read the language of pre Islamic criticism. Then, I dealt with the criticism texts that reached us from the era of beginning of Islam represented by the prophet (p.b.u.h.), and the Orthodox caliphs. I also studied the criticism of Arab critics who established for an Arabic criticism theory in their opinions, that’s why their texts were the base that my study highly relied on reaching to the end of Abbasid era, for criticism after this time seemed extremely different; rather, it is developed from what we used to find in Abbasid era and backward the matter that deserves a separate study for its language.
The researcher got benefit from a lot of references and bibliographies to be in this nice shape. So, books of heritage that reached us along with study period were the main source of the study, as well, the researcher highly got benefit from a number of bibliographies, among them were ‘ fe al nehu Al Arabi’ book by Dr. Mehdi Al Mekhzoomi, ‘ Mebahith Te’wiliyah fe Al Negd Al Arabi Al Qadim’ book by Dr. Hakin Al Graiti, ‘ Bunyat Al Lugha Al She’riyah’ book by Jan kohen, and ‘ Al She’riyah’ book by Dr. Hassan Nadhum; in addition to a large number of theses, dissertations, and researches that facilitated many things in this study.
Concerning the research difficulties, the research material which represented Arabic thought within almost seven centuries was the most prominent one, including the change of criticism nature from a critic to another and from specific century development into another, this is in addition that this material was spread in books of century, beside the plan of the study which mixed between the old and the modern, the matter that requires time to read and choose the suitable texts in order to reach a nice reading or to prove a previous reading through stopping at the text language and searching about contexts and evidences that create new reading or prefer an opinion on another. Moreover, the researcher tried to resort the critic’s critical opinions in accord to thought series from the old to the older. Thus, the researcher investigated in the thoughts and opinions in accord with the time order of critics’ death for the thought to be clear and developed as well language development which was expressed by the thought. All that required a plan that contains criticism subjects and the difference of the critical language between a century and another. So, I found the modern readings and curriculum a good supporter beside the old thought so as to conclude with thoughts enable us to stop at the reality of critical language of Arab critics. Therefore, the research plan consisted of three chapters preceded by a preface where I talked about language of criticism firstly and literature of criticism secondly.
The first chapter has three sections. It discusses the first truth of the linguistic use, that is the structure, for both the literary and critical experiment are basically a linguistic experiment. So, the structural chapter was a key for reading thoughts and the critical visions. Since the sentence is the minor articulatory images of the useful speech, I started studying its two types: the nominal and the verbal in the first section. The old critic who is interested in the literary language should have structural building that show his ability in this concern, the matter that facilitates understanding the critical judgment and the critic’s intention for it talks about language. This speech requires a language parallel to that language on the level of expressing to less extent. The second section of this chapter tackled expressing with the displaced sentence, it included turning around, fronting, and postponing. All these are devices that freely let the critic express or build judgments, or to describe literature for these styles have enough area of what the critic desires, as well, his influence by these styles with the missing text which represents the widest entrance of these displacements. Then, the third section studies the expression with the compositional sentence including the conditional and negative styles when the first is in charge of enlarging the sentence with more structures in expression while the second one has to deny the doubt away from the receiver’s mind or prove a matter which is a matter limited by context.
The second chapter was devoted to state functions of language of criticism that the old used before their knowing the term. Thus, when they searched about the style, they searched about function, or thought that what he wanted to clarify for others, for the speech is not intended by itself, rather to express for people what is found in their spirits. The critical discourse is formed by a critical language that put the receiver in front of it. thus, I discussed ( the communicative function) the contexts that accompanied the critical discourse in the first section. So, the receiver wanted to convey things that were away from the receiver which were formed by the literary man. The second section mentioned the cultural function that emerged the dominant values to Arabs, and their impact on the two processes of the literary and critical outcome, for the Arabic critic explicitly worked to emerge Arab culture principles. So, they criticized what get out of it and emphasized what they agreed on; however, the section of the intentional function had a task to stop at literature and to return to the many references that the literary text opens at one references or more according to the indications that appear to the critic; hence, the critic, through his work aims at making the receiver understand; the matter that lead to finding a common intention between the two. But this does not mean that the intention is clear enough, so what he missed will be the critic’s task.