The aesthetics of graphic representation in the poetry of Bashar bin Burd

Abstract

From its inception, the Arabic language has held a distinguished position among human languages, thanks to its immense expressive power and astonishing ability to generate meanings and shape concepts into captivating images. Perhaps the most telling indicator of this uniqueness is that the ancient Arab's speech, both poetry and prose, flowed naturally, emanating from his innate nature. His expressions were imbued with sincerity, charged with the warmth of feeling, and free from any artifice that might weaken their impact or dim their brilliance. For them, emotion translated itself directly into captivating artistic language, born from an instinct honed by Bedouin life and its purity and closeness to nature. Within this intellectual and rhetorical context, the name of Bashar ibn Burd stands out. He was not only a poet but also one of the leading orators of his time, combining encyclopedic knowledge with refined artistic taste. Based on this stature, this research adopts a descriptive-analytical approach to examine the aesthetics of figurative language in his poetry and to reveal the artistic and semantic dimensions that have made his imagery a source of admiration for critics, both past and present. The study demonstrates that Bashar ibn Burd excelled in portraying women in a way that makes them move before the reader like living beings, pulsating with intricate details. He captures their outward features, grasps the threads of their emotions, and vividly describes their movements and stillness, relying on complex imagination and precise selection of similes, so that women in his poems appear almost embodied before the reader's eyes, despite his blindness. Undoubtedly, the most prominent indicator of his poetic power is his masterful use of rhetorical devices, especially simile and metaphor. He knew how to carefully select the two elements of a simile, highlighting the meaning and forming a complete, multi-dimensional image for the imagination. He also demonstrated mastery of metaphor, one of the most subtle rhetorical devices, through which he evoked images with profound psychological depth, imbuing abstract meanings with a striking sensory quality that astonished the reader and captivated their emotions. Thus, Bashar ibn Burd stands as a prominent example of a poet who, despite his blindness, was able to construct a luminous poetic world, its colors harmonious, its images interconnected, and its meanings vibrant, offering the reader a refined art form