Ameen Al-Rihani and the experience of prose poetry

Abstract

Ameen Al-Rihani’s experience in his prose poetry marks the beginning of a pioneering modernist style that the Arab literary scene had not witnessed before, as he presented it. Through it, he aimed to bring about a radical shift in the rhythmic structure of Arabic poetry at both its external and internal levels. This involved departing from the traditional meters and infusing a harmonious rhythm from within the text, diversifying rhymes, balancing sound and meaning, breaking conventional pauses, and involving semantic significance in shaping rhythm, known as the rhythm of ideas. The goal was to create a musical harmony that replaces meter and rhyme, making verbal significance the most important element in poetic message. This experimentation aimed to break free from the strictures of traditional systems and rebel against them, amalgamating poetry and prose and drawing from the distinctive features of each. Poetry, with its suggestive language rich in visions, symbols, and imagination, while prose offers a loose narrative style with extensive use of vocabulary.  Accordingly, this study revolves around Ameen Al-Rihani and his experiment with scattered poetry, employing analytical methodology to examine the prominent artistic phenomena in his first collection (Hotaf Al-Awadiyah), where he adopted scattered poetry as an initial experiment. These phenomena include rhythm, influence from the Quran, and typographical form.