Abo Tamam, Al-Mutanabi, Nizar Qabani and Adonis!!! What is beauty and what is modern?

Abo Tamam, Al-Mutanabi, Nizar Qabani and Adonis!!!

What is beauty and what is modern?
"Cultural Criticism" of Abdullah Ghathami

Presentation: Motaa Al-Kak

From Aomrou Al-Qais until Nizar and Adonis, cultural arrangement delves into Arabic culture, represented by poetry, through the idea of the "stallion" which affects Arabic character and makes its behavior inhumane and undemocratic.
The moral value which accompanies the poem is established to make us consider it in a different way, unlike what is predominant in the history of literary criticism. It puts us in front of the question: What does the poem, an Arabic art form which we are proud to call a unique art form, do to us? And what does it create in our characters?
In the beginning, the poet was like the tongue of the tribe, articulating its name and defending it. Therefore, he was speaking with the perspective of "we" and the voice of the tribe was raised with the voice of its poet who describes its glory and its heroism.
Tribes depend on the two, essential adjectives "Generosity and Courage." Generosity means to receive guests and that value was essential to tribes because the harsh, desert environment they existed in. Moving in it without this value meant death. Courage means fighting others and defending the tribe.
The poet honors his tribe by neglecting others. He faces ignorance with ignorance and injustice with injustice. Complete, cultural change happens in the Arabic poem. When, in the kingdoms of the Arabic Gulf, the commander at their head desired glory and power, the poem became a marketable good. Then, the perspective of the poem changed from "we" to "I" and the poet was searching for a personal advantage after being the voice of the tribe. He became the seller of words or lies. The value of generosity changed from its positive meaning to a marketable good which belongs to the poet, who exploits the generosity of the interested patron. Whenever he exaggerates his lies, his wage increases. The poem became a kind of contract between the poet and the patron, who share the benefits. This text belongs to both of them while the audience deals with a text that doesn’t express them. The audience sees a text full of lies which doesn’t belong to them.
The idea of the male stallion becomes stronger. It owns the pronunciation. The pronunciation is male and the meaning is female. "The poets say what they don't do" in order to justify an immoral value. The classifications have been created as "the level of stallion poets" on this basis. One who doesn’t flatter and doesn’t disparage and doesn’t honor is 1/4 of a poet. The idea of the tyrant poet is established.
And like this, the immoral arrangement was created and immersed into Arabic poetry.
Though it was very effective in previous ages, even our age was affected by its influence. The age of Democracy and human rights and movement, which was a result of the most important poetic symbols. When the stereotype of women is repeated in the poems of Nazar and returns to the repetition of what the arrangement said in the past, then the writer is the history of women. Women do not exist without poems. Just as Jarir said: "I am the era." And Al-Farzdak: "I am death." Adonis said, repeating what his ancestor said: "I am the light." "I am the forms, all of them."
The Adonis phenomenon was a project in modernity from perspectives and writing. In its appearance and according to its reality, there is a repetition of results for the arrangement of the stallion. We can define the adjectives of Adonis's style with: "It is irrational and unreasonable because of its change in form. It depends on pronunciation and elitism and egoism which is not realistic or historical. It is individualistic and depends on exchanging the place of the stallions. It is magic and the ego is at its center."
"What we have achieved from poetic adjectives, affected our own culture and humanity with exorbitant faults. We continue to produce these faults. Perhaps these faults are mainly responsible for our cultural obstacles because the poem is the speech which monopolizes our modernity. So, we will not succeed because the poem in itself is hidden and we haven't exerted the effort to expose it."
Dr. Abdullah Gathami presents his project through the book, "The Cultural Criticism: Reading in the Arabic Cultural Arrangement." The book has seven parts. The first part is about cultural criticism in the West and the second part is a theoretical introduction about the method he followed in his research. The remaining parts describe the idea of the stallion until he reaches the seventh part which exposes the most important symbols of contemporary poetry.
The study of the arrangement demands that the researcher have a different perspective towards the essential concepts in the cultural criticism presented by Al-Gathami. Literary criticism considers the poem with holiness, ignoring its faults, remembering its beauty and forgetting its ugliness. The elitism, bourgeoisie and genius are expressions that make this speech pass peacefully without judgment because the literary criticism has ignored it through the idea of the individualistic, tyrannical stallion.