Lesson 1: The Poetic Experience, Its Elements and Organic Artistic Unity

01First: an introduction to the concept of the poetic experience

• After studying the unity of poetry, its several schools and its different texts, we conclude that every poem issued from a poetic experience and a sincere suffering that the poet felt and was moved by, and then brought out in the form we study.
• The elements of the experience, as we uncover them:
• The intellectual element: the subject of the poem and the meanings the poet brought.
• The emotional element: the sum of the feelings to whose sway the poet was subjected.
• The expressive element: the poetic formulation in which ideas mingle with sensations, and in which words, structures, images, imaginative figures and music express the ideas and the feelings.

Definition of the poetic experience

• It is the complete psychological or cosmic picture that the poet paints when he thinks about some matter with a thinking that takes possession of his feelings and sensations, so that he finds no outlet except the verse he composes.

The elements of the poetic experience

• Wijdān — also named emotion, sensation, feeling, or being-moved.
• Thought (fikr).
• The expressive image, comprising words, structures, images, imaginative figures and music.

02Second: the first element — feeling (wijdān)

• Wijdān is the most prominent element of the poetic experience; its presence secures the experience emotional sincerity. It is the foundation of the experience — otherwise the poem turns into versifying without feeling.

What does not count as a successful experience

• What issues from mere outward sense-perception without emotional involvement.
• What the poet brings by imitating another, or by copying from others.
• What mimics nature with a deaf imitation.
• What is produced for occasions.

The subject-matter of the experience

• It is not restricted: it is general and covers the cosmic, psychological, social or human aspects.
• Its basis is the sincerity of being-moved.
• It is not necessary that it be realistic — it may be an imaginary experience that is still sincere, so long as the poet is faithful in conveying what he imagined as he suffered it and re-presented it.

03Third: the second element — thought (fikr)

• The poetic experience is the product of feeling and thought together, and the two must mingle in every experience.
• Feeling gives it its subjectivity and its spirit.
• Thought guarantees its precision, and helps to order the thoughts and the images and tighten the joints between the parts into a completed work of art.

When thought dominates

• If the intellectual side outweighs the experience, it loses the spirit and the warmth of poetry and falls outside its range.
• Its example: the saying of Sheikh Ali al-Laythi after the Urabi revolution, which carries a direct piece of wisdom: "Each is the harvest of its opposite, so hold to patience — on it everything relies."

When feeling dominates

• If the side of sensation outweighs, the experience loses its value and becomes an emotional flow-out.
• Its example: a poet who multiplies "wāhā… wāhā", repeating the groan without any effect on hearts.

The conclusion

• Whenever an experience has the warmth of emotional sincerity together with the depth and soundness of thought, it rises and stretches into wide human horizons and gains the element of permanence and immortality.

04Fourth: the third element, part one — words

• There is no language peculiar to poetry: every word may be used by the poet and loaded with whatever senses and suggestions he wants, so that it achieves in its place what no other word could achieve.
• The old rhetoricians and critics dwelt on the standards of the beauty of the poetic word:
• Clarity and precision of sense.
• Distance from discord (tanāfur) among its letters.
• The eloquence of fronting and delaying (taqdīm and taʾkhīr).
• Mentioning and omitting.
• Emphasis.
• The links between sentences and the rest.

05Fifth: the expressive image, part two — images and imagination

The standards of a good image

• That it be from the inspiration of the inner sense and an echo of it, not built on mere outward perception.
• That its material be consistent with the feeling that inspired it.
• That it have an organic function in the experience — working in the forward movement of its growth or in completing the artistic creation until it reaches its aim of delight and conviction.
• That it be closer to suggesting the idea than to stating it outright.

The types of image

• The partial image: brings out a small idea through simile, borrowed image (istiʿārah) or kināyah.
• The total image: it represents the artistic framework of the poet's psychological experience. Of it there is the conventional kind which poets used most, and the inventive kind which relies on creating new relations founded on delicacy of perception and penetration of insight.

06Sixth: the expressive image, part three — music

• Music is an element of the expressive image; it has its effect in the soul's acceptance of the experience and its being moved by it. Music is two colours.

The overt colour

• It relies on the regularity of metre and rhyme and everything with a sound-ring the ear perceives.
• Metre (wazn): the sound units on which poets compose their poems; the unit is called tafʿīlah because it is built from the root "fa-ʿa-la".
• Every set of feet forms a metre-mode (baḥr), and the first to catalogue the modes was al-Khalil ibn Ahmad.
• Each mode has a name such as al-Ṭawīl, al-Wāfir, al-Kāmil; and the discipline that studies the metres of poetry is called ʿilm al-ʿarūḍ.
• Rhyme (qāfiyah): the agreement of two or more lines in their final letter. The condition on the word that carries the rhyme is that it be born of the subject, settled in its place, neither dragged in for the metre nor forced where it does not belong.
• A poet may observe besides this words matching in their rhythm — as in the saying of Abu Tammām.

The covert colour

• It is apprehended by the soul through the experience itself, and produces in it its own shocks and oscillations.
• Its source is the interaction of the words, phrases, images and imaginative figures, and their consistency within one harmonic whole that has its effect on the soul.

07Seventh: organic artistic unity

• If you read a poem of the Romantic school you find it speaking of one subject, dominated by one feeling, with its thoughts and images running in sequence, interlinked and completing one another.

What artistic unity is made of

• Unity of subject.
• Unity of feeling.
• The sequencing of thought and images under that unity of thought and feeling, their interlinking and their completing one another.
• Every idea and every image performs its living function in the building of the experience, helping the artistic creation to grow and to reach completion.

Its effect on creation

• It makes the poem a living being in which each part has its function and its place.
• It prevents the multiplicity of aims and the jarring of parts, and secures conviction and delight.
• It is what the school of al-Diwan called for, and what the schools of Apollo, Mahjar and the New (Realist) school took up.

08Eighth: applying the concept of the poetic experience to the texts

• "In Elegy of Maya" (al-Aqqad): a sincere feeling running from shock to defiance, thought about death and immortality, images free of straining, and unity between thought, feeling and the sad atmosphere.
• "I Love You, My Homeland" (Mahmoud Hassan Ismail): the feeling of love for the homeland, thought about ransom, dense images and agile music, and unity of subject in the atmosphere of love.
• "The Eagles" (Abu Sunna): the thought of the two methods in life, a total symbolic unfolding image, the music of the tafʿīlah, and objective unity.
• "Exile and Longing to the Homeland" (Shawqi): the experience of exile and yearning, with an emulation (muʿāraḍah) of an old poem, and many ideas within one single psychological unity.
• When analysing, we ask: what is the experience? how was feeling embodied? what is its idea? how did words, images and music serve it? and how was unity achieved?

09Ninth: a summary that must be memorised

• Experience = sincere suffering + a taking-over act of thinking + expressive formulation.
• Feeling = sincerity and warmth; thought = precision and firm building; and the two together = permanence.
• Image: from the inner sense, consistent with the feeling, with an organic function, suggestive.
• Music: overt (metre and rhyme) and covert (the interaction of words and images).
• Artistic unity: unity of subject + unity of feeling + the sequencing of thought and images.

10Exam traps and key takeaways

• The definition has three fixed parts: the complete picture (psychological or cosmic) · a thinking that takes possession of the feelings · no outlet except the composed verse. Dropping "takes possession of the feelings" turns it into ordinary description.
• Three elements, with their exact jobs: wijdān gives sincerity and subjectivity · fikr gives precision, ordering and tight joints · the expressive image carries them in words, structures, images, figures and music.
• The four things that are not successful experiences: mere outward sense without involvement · imitation or copying · deaf mimicry of nature · occasion-poetry. "Occasion poetry" was also Mutran's and al-Diwan's chief complaint against the Revivalists — the two questions are linked.
• An experience need not be realistic: an imaginary one is valid if the poet is sincere about what he imagined and suffered. "Only realistic experience counts" is a wrong option.
• The two imbalances and their named examples: thought dominant → loss of the spirit and warmth of poetry (Sheikh Ali al-Laythi's direct wisdom after the Urabi revolution); feeling dominant → mere emotional flow, value lost (the poet who repeats "wāḥā… wāḥā" without effect on hearts).
• The outcome when both are present: rise, wide human horizons, permanence and immortality — memorise the wording of section 9 exactly.
• There is no special language for poetry — the trap option is "poetry needs a particular vocabulary". What matters is that a word achieves in its place what no other word could. The old standards are: clear and precise sense, no discord of letters, eloquent fronting and delaying, mentioning and omitting, emphasis, and the links between sentences.
• Four standards of a good image, in order: from the inner sense (not outward perception only) · material consistent with the feeling · an organic function toward delight and conviction · suggestion closer than outright statement.
• Image types: partial (one small idea via simile, istiʿārah or kināyah) vs total (the artistic framework of the whole psychological experience), and the total is either conventional or inventive (new relations from delicacy of perception and penetration of insight).
• Music terms to place exactly: tafʿīlah from the root fa-ʿa-la · a set of feet = a baḥr · al-Khalil ibn Ahmad was the first to catalogue the modes · the science is ʿilm al-ʿarūḍ · rhyme = agreement in the final letter.
• The condition on the rhyme-word: born of the subject, settled in place, not dragged in for the metre nor forced — this is the standard answer for "when is a rhyme acceptable".
• Overt music is what the ear hears (metre, rhyme, ring); covert music is what the soul apprehends through the experience, from the interaction and consistency of words, phrases, images and figures in one harmonic whole.
• Artistic unity = unity of subject + unity of feeling + sequenced, interlinked, completing thoughts and images, with each part doing its living function; its effect is that the poem becomes a living being, free of multiple aims and jarring parts. Historically it was called for by al-Diwan and taken up by Apollo, Mahjar and the New school — not invented by Apollo.
• Text mapping to revise quickly: Maya's elegy = shock to defiance · "I Love You, My Homeland" = love and ransom with dense images and agile music · "The Eagles" = two methods of life, total symbolic image, tafʿīlah music, objective unity · Shawqi's exile poem = many ideas inside one psychological unity, with muʿāraḍah of an old poem.