The Poetics of the Opening Speech of Literary Prosimetrum (Maqamat): Selected Models

Abstract

The Arab narrative heritage is replete with valuable literary models belonging to diverse literary genres. Prosimetrum (Maqama) is considered as one of the prosimetric literary genres that prevailed in the old Arabic narratives in a distinctive way. Like any literary text, Maqamat is governed by a set of rules that help the reader understand the portrayed ideas of this literary text.  Accordingly, the opening speech is assumed to be the most prominent element of Arabic prosimetrum as it is the key that enables the reader to enter the world of prosimetrum and discover the author’s intention.

Therefore, this research study is intended to investigate Arabic prosimetrum opening speech by analyzing a group of ancient literary prosimetric texts in terms of their opening sentences, their various literary features and the author’s ability to take the reader out of reality to fiction. Finally, we tackled the areas of imitation and renewal that characterized Arabic prosimetrum opening speech and the level of its poetics.