introduction

Arabic poetry in the post-classical period (c. 1250–1850) cannot in practice be studied in discrete fashion. Poetic events are not so clearly marked as to make it possible to designate a particular date for the beginning and end of an artistic trend or movement. In this particular case, it is imperative to examine the artistic background to poetry at the beginning of the period, to trace the chain of development and the often subtle changes in the various elements of the poem which may have affected the status of poetry during this particular period.

From the fourth/tenth century on, Arabic poetry underwent a number of processes of acquisition and discard. Between the fifth/eleventh and tenth/sixteenth centuries, one notices a succession of poetic phenomena of interest to anyone concerned with the way art changes. However, alongside new developments within the poetry itself, there is also a linear process rooted in earlier, more flourishing poetic periods, but especially affected during the period under consideration here by subsequent detrimental circumstances. The changes that beset this verse demand an exploration of the possible forces that underlay what critics and literary historians have called its ‘decline’.