PDF

Keywords

Al-Bait
Neuroaesthetics
Brain Functions
Metaphoric Representation

Abstract

With the exception of Ḥāzim al-Qarṭājanni, no scholar was able to interpret the form of the Arabic poetic verse (al-Bait) which consists of two symmetrical parts (al-Ṣadr wal-‘Ajuz). Based on the Aristotle’s idea of imitation, Al-Qarṭājanni explained al-Bait as an imitating mental image of the Arab tent. Though this is brilliant, it is still an inadequate interpretation. This paper attempts to introduce a new explanation by combining the phenomenological method with Neuroaesthetics via adapting some of its results to focus on the creative process itself. The paper, through theoretical and applied analyzes, reached a main conclusion that the form of Arabic verse is an allegorical image of the poetic consciousness which produced it, and an outcome of its metaphorical thinking represented by the interrelating of the function of the left hemisphere of the brain (thinking) and the function of the right hemisphere (imagination), which correspond to al-Ṣadr wal-‘Ajuz respectively.
https://doi.org/10.33899/berj.2022.174483
  PDF