Receiving Al-Khansa’a poetry in modern Arabic criticism

Abstract

       This research deals with modern critical studies that dealt with Al-Khansa’a’s poetry through study, analysis, and criticism. I divided the research into two sections in light of the material that I collected. The first section I devoted to studies that studied the contents in Al-Khansa’a’s poetry, which are many studies and researches. The second section I devoted to studies that dealt with stylistic and artistic characteristics. In the poetry of Al-Khansa, the research reached a set of results that I mentioned in the conclusion of the research. Al-Khansa excelled in poetry of lamentation, to the point that this content overshadowed the contents of her other poetry, according to the testimony of all critics, ancient and modern. This in turn made most of the modern critical studies that specialized in Al-Khansaa’s poetry stop at the contents of lamentation primarily and then with enthusiasm.

       Many modern Arab critical studies of Al-Khansa’a poetry were characterized by their reliance on the criterion of comparison and comparison between Al-Khansaa and her fellow poets who excelled in elegiac poetry or produced distinguished elegiac poetic compositions belonging to different time periods. Some of them compared it to its pre-Islamic contemporaries, and some compared it to the poets of the Islamic or Abbasid eras. And even some modern-day poets as well, and these studies have produced a conclusion that is almost a given to them, that Al-Khansa exceeded her standards with her prowess in lamentation