51 Ali Ahmad Said Adonis, “Adonis: Interview,” by Margaret Obank and Samuel
Shimon, Banipal(June 1998), pp. 30–39, at p. 38.
52 Adnnls [cAllAhmad Sacld], Al-Kitmb: Ams al-makmn al-mn: Makhynyah tunsab
lil-Mutanabbl(The Book Yesterday, the Place Now: A Manuscript Attributed to
al-Mutanabbl), 2 vols (London: Dmr Al-Smql, 1995).
53 Ymhm>usayn, Maca al-Mutanabbl(In the Company of al-Mutanabbl) (Cairo:
Dmr Al-Macmrif, 1937).
54 See Ymhm>usayn, Maca al-Mutanabbl, p. 100.
55 See Nazik Saba Yared, Arab Travelers and Western Civilization, trans., Sumayya
Damluji Shahbandar, rev. and eds Tony P. Naufal and Jana Gough (London: Saqi
Books, 1996), p. 183, on Ymhm>usayn and Amln al-Rayhmnl.
56 See note 48.
57 “Adonis: Interview,” p. 38.
58 Ezra Pound, “The Tradition,” in Literary Essays of Ezra Pound, ed. and intro.,
T. Eliot (New York: A New Directions Book, 1918; reprint, 1968), p. 92.
59 Edward Said, The World, the Text, and the Critic(London: Vintage Edition, 1991),
p. 121.
60 cAbd al-Xabnr, Al-Acmml al-kmmilah, p. 419.
61 T. S. Eliot, “Tradition and the Individual Talent,” in Twentieth-Century Literary
Criticism, ed. David Lodge (London: Longman, 1972), pp. 71–77, at p. 73.
62 cAbd al-Xabnr, Al-Acmml al-kmmilah, p. 329.
63 Bloom, A Map of Misreading, p. 105.
64 Muhsin J. Al-Musawi, “Dedications as Poetic Intersections,” Journal of Arabic
Literature, 31, no. 1 (2000), pp. 1–37.
65 Trans., ed. and intro., A. J. Arberry, Poems of Al-Mutanabbl: A Selection with
Inroduction, Translations, and Notes(Cambridge: The University Press, 1967), p. 103.
66 See Chapter 6, n. 19.
67 Adnnls, Al-Kitmb: ams al-makmn al-mn.
68 See Khmlid al-Karakl, Al-Rumnz al-turmthiyyah al-cArabiyyah flal-shicr al-cArabl
al-.adlth(Classical Arabic Symbols in Modern Arabic Poetry) (Beirut: Dmr
Al-Jll, 1989).
69 In a December 1953 article, cited here, Nmzik al-Malm’ikah writes, “Any cursory
social reading of the lexical and grammatical [in Arabic]could prove to us quite
clearly that this is a language of people who look down on women.” She cites the
use of the masculine pronoun as an example. She also thinks that the contempo-
rary use of ummiyyah, illiteracy, is derivative from umm, “mother” in Arabic. As I
have said elsewhere, al-Malm’ikah had then a feminist drive, but her feminism
was not as well-documented as her poetic innovations. See al-Mnsawl,
“Marjiciyymt.” Moreover, for her important feminist contribution, see “Al-Mar’ah
bayna yarafayn: al-Salbiyyah wa-al-Akhlmq” (Women between Two Poles:
Negativity and Morals), Al-Mdmb, 12 (December 1953), pp. 1–3, 66–69, at p. 2.
70 On the use of expressive devices in elaborating a theme as text, see Alexander
Zholkovsky, Themes and Texts: Toward a Poetics of Expressiveness(Ithaca, NY and
London: Cornell University Press, 1984), pp. 24–25.
4 POETIC DIALOGIZATION: ANCESTORS IN THE
TEXT—FIGURES AND FIGURATIONS
1 Figuration here relates to the connotation process, the topoi of rhetoric, whereas
de-figuration relates to denotation, or the “directly verifiable.” De-figurationNOTES