Third: the second element — thought (fikr)

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.