Al-Baymtl’s reading is not identical with that of another contemporary, cAll
A.mad Sacld, Adnnls (Adonis). His Mutanabblis a person first, a poet who
holds many characters at once—the rebel, the rover, the lover, and the seer.
He is also a person of some mysterious ancestry, as the water-carrier’s stepson
whose lineage to Immm cAll’s family implies his right to the caliphate.^82
Perhaps this side brings al-Mutanabblcloser to Adnnls, as it imprints his
character with a stamp of melancholy, pride, courage, defiance, and restless-
ness. Indeed, as early as 1964, Adnnls’ biographical entry on al-Mutanabbl
in Dlwmn al-Shicr al-cArabl (The Diwan of Arabic poetry) emphasizes
al-Mutanabbl’s “pride,” along with his being “courageous and adventur-
ous.”^83 Adnnls’s selection covers certain items of his precursor’s poetry,
usually identical with Adnnls’ own predilections. There are a few titles typi-
cal of the collection such as “Complaint,” “The Black Sun,” “Remembrance,”
“Heedless of Homelands,” “The Intimate Sorrow,” “The Rock,” “Prison,” “To
a Woman,” “Wind,” “Humiliation,” and “Ecstasy of Pain” along with many
other titles that may pass as poems by Adnnls himself (Ibid.). Adnnls’s criti-
cal assessment applies no less to al-Mutanabbl’s character than to the defiant
tone of his poetry:
In the poetry of al-Mutanabbl, the poet’s rebellion against society
takes a dimension which is bright and more personal, for the poet
distinguishes himself, and presents his person as a whole universe of
certainty, assurance, and sublimity, in the face of others and against
them. In the very inwardness of his poetry, he embraces this selfhood,
addresses it and argues with it in a tone of captivating worship.
(Ibid.19)Al-Mutanabblis more to the taste of Adnnls because, in his poetry, the
personal grows into the poetic, hence there is in his poetry:
A whole nature of words, up to his own aspirations, for they challenge,
progress, sweep away, attack, conquer, and transcend as...as if they
were the inward answer of his inner self, its very extension and
supplementation
(Ibid. 20)Adnnls’s major contribution in this regard lies, however, in Al-Kitmb
(The Book),^84 his subsequent project to resurrect al-Mutanabblas a person
from a heap of distortions. Along with him, and through his voice, history
is reconstructed as a battleground fraught with disasters, calamities, and
fabrications. Planning his allegedly resurrected manuscript in the manner of
annotation, emendation, and comment, Adnnls rephrases many of his pre-
cursor’s poems, juxtaposing these against the historical details, offered by the
narrator on the right margin, and against some interventions and intrusions
DEDICATIONS AS POETIC INTERSECTIONS