Artistic Images in Old and New Criticism: Metaphor in the Works of Abd al-Qahir al-Jurjani and Jaber Asfour

The subject of this article is the image of art between old and new rhetoric and, in particular, metaphor according to Jaber Asfour’s view. The artistic expression of nature and characteristics and the course of its evolution and its fundamental study through its relationship with other sciences and the role that these sciences have in the realization of this concept is the most important project that Jaber Asfour brought in some of his compilations, including “artistic image in Arabic Criticism and rhetoric” which is one of the deepest studies in this field. In this research we discover the hidden dimensions of artistic imagery in Jaber Asfour’s view based on metaphor. In order to achieve this goal, we refer to Jaber Asfoor’s book as the main source and then refer to other relevant books, such as Secrets of Al-Balaghah and Alla'il al-Ajaz, to criticize and analyze it. The results show that Jaber Asfour’s view on metaphor is a comprehensive view. According to the discourses of formation of artistic forms, Jaber has provided a profound study of them and concluded that the old critics did not focus on the emotional aspects of objects or the emotional content of words, but maintained the rational reconciliation of their constituent elements. In other words, their way of thinking about similitude was based on rational and verbal terms. So, Jaber Asfour concludes that such a vision has led to a distortion in the concept of poetry, and rhetorically avoids explaining the great abilities of analogies and metaphors. He believes that Abd al-Qahir did not pay attention to personifications for religious tendencies. In our research, we have mentioned examples of rhetorical theory that undermine this claim, or at least makes us to look at it with doubt and certainty.