Manifestations of sadness in Ibn al-Rumi’s poetry – a study of language and emotion

Abstract

This study aims to explore the manifestations of sorrow in the poetry of Ibn al-Rūmī through a linguistic and emotional analysis that seeks to highlight the dimensions of this phenomenon in his life and literary creativity. The research is structured into an introduction and two main chapters. The introduction provides insights into the title, followed by a discussion of the concept of sorrow in both linguistic and terminological contexts, with reference to the harsh circumstances Ibn al-Rūmī endured, which profoundly influenced his poetic experience. Sorrow emerged as one of the most salient features of his personality and literary production.

The first chapter investigates the various aspects of sorrow in his poetry, revealing that personal grief—stemming from his inner self, the loss of his dearest ones, and his persistent fear of the vicissitudes of time—occupied a central place in his poems. Alongside this, social sorrow was also present, as he expressed the suffering of his community and the injustices, poverty, and deprivation it experienced. In this way, the poet reflected an authentic portrayal of both individual and collective anguish in his era.

The second chapter analyzes the language of sorrow in Ibn al-Rūmī’s poetry, focusing on the vocabulary and syntactic structures he employed to convey his distress. Words associated with tears, death, and absence recur frequently, while his sentence constructions are marked by sharpness and fragmentation, all of which mirror the depth of his inner emotions.

The study concludes that sorrow in Ibn al-Rūmī’s poetry was not a transient state, but rather a central axis of his poetic vision. It embodied the fusion of personal experience with collective concerns, making his poetry a faithful mirror of an anxious self and a turbulent reality. Thus, examining the language of sorrow in his poetry reveals a rich poetic energy imbued with human dimensions that transcend the boundaries of his time, resonating with readers across ages.