Norms of excellence in the chief poetical arts...

Norms of excellence in the chief poetical arts, such as panegyric, satire, and elegy. Linguistic aspects of literary art. These various problems of literary criticism were treated sometimes separately in a specialized fashion, and sometimes together in manuals or textbooks. The stylistic aspects in particular received a large share of the Arab authors’ attention, and the researches around them grew until they formed a separate critical branch under the name of Balaghah .

This was mainly the outcome of the Muslims pre-occupation with problems of the Qur’anic exegesis and i‘jaz . Greek writings on rhetorics which were translated into Arabic as early as the third/ninth century also contributed to the growth of the science of Balaghah . In fact, that science dominated the Arabic critical field all through the later centuries of Islam from the seventh/13th to the 12th/18th.

The above enumeration of the different aspects of Arabic literary criticism will indicate the immensity of its wealth, and the difficulty of separating the Arab contribution in this field from their contribution to the development of Arabic language and literature in general. Many a general book on literature, such as the Kitab al-Aghani (Book of Songs) by Abu al-Faraj, would also claim a place among the books of literary criticism. The same can be said by the unique excellence of the Qur’an.

But the following survey of the main features of Arabic literary criticism we shall limit ourselves to singling out some of its outstanding landmarks and making a brief halt at each of them. On the early grammarians, philologists, and literary critics of the first stage in Arabic authorship was ibn Sallam (d. 231/845). His book Tabaqat al-Shu‘ara’ is representative of the critical attainments of his period.

Criticism, he maintains, needs long training and experience, and a critic must be an expert on his subject and well versed in the practice of his art. In other words, taste alone does not meet the requirements of criticism, and must be supplemented by experience and long study. He also adds that poetry, like the sciences and other arts, needs its own special technique and culture. He was aware of the established truth that abundance of practical study is worth more than all academic knowledge.

The second point stressed by ibn Sallam in his book is the importance of verifying the poetical texts and of ascertaining their origin.