Stages in the Evolution of Artistic Imagery in Pre-Islamic Poetry: Imru’ al-Qays’s Poem Describing the Thoroughbred Horse as a Case Study

Abstract

Pre-Islamic poetry formed an accurate and truthful picture of the cultural, social, and political life in the Arabian Peninsula during the pre-Islamic period. They recorded in it various aspects of their lives, from ruins and records of wars to boasts, elegies, and satires. Pre-Islamic poetry also revealed the level of development of the Arabic language and the multiplicity of its meanings and artistic and rhetorical images. This is what we will address in this study: the artistic image that emerged in pre-Islamic poetry. Without these images, poetry loses its meaning and its scientific and literary content. Pre-Islamic poets excelled in depicting realistic facts and portraying them for us in their poems as if we were witnessing them firsthand. This was inspired by their desert environment and the desert animals that inhabited it, such as camels, hyenas, lions, and birds. In addition, they praised their horses, their pedigree, their speed, their ferocity, and their ability to surprise enemies with magnificent artistic imagery. This is what we find in the poetry of Imru' al-Qais, and specifically in his poem praising his horse. This research serves as a model for clarifying the description of the horse in Imru' al-Qais's poetry, providing compelling evidence of the artistic imagery in the description of the horse in particular The animal in general, and the treatment of this purpose (description) in that poem, is a model for the stages of development of artistic imagery in pre-Islamic poetry and the transitions of imagery from the concrete to the abstract and from the abstract to the concrete, and so on. These indications are very important for clarifying the literary changes and transitions from the concrete to the abstract and vice versa, to give credence to the pre-Islamic poet's vision in the magnificent artistic depiction, as is the case in Imru' al-Qays's poem, within the transformations of artistic imagery. By this, we mean the types of artistic imagery, from a simple, single image to a compound image, and then to a complete image composed of several images. This research provides a broad overview of the transitions and stages of development of artistic imagery in pre-Islamic poetry. We have approached this study according to the descriptive-analytical method, as it is the most suitable for such a study.