The Fictocriticism of Mu’allaqā (the Suspended Ode) (Ṭarafah ibn al-‘Abd) According to the Theory of Gaston Bachelard

Fictocriticism is an innovative branch in literary criticism, theorerically propounded by the French physicist and philosopher Gaston Bachelard. This framework creates a link between human understanding of the phenomenal world and the four main substances in creation, i.e. water, fire, air and soil. According to Bachelar, each original or outstanding has an intimate relationship with these substances, which is manfested in his/her artistic products. The appearance of this element is associated with a poet’s psyche which is indicatve of what has happened to him/her, apart from its aesthetic features. The phenomenology of imagination targets dual images and analyzes them with psychological concepts. This study draws on this framework in order to examine the duality of images in Tarafa’s poetry and their influence on the poet’s psyche. The study finds that the prominet duality of life and death in Tarafa’s poetry, he creates images inspired by water and soil. The poet first uses the image of earth and then imbues it with images of soil to address the concept of death as his main concern. Accordingly, the phenomenology of imagination by creating sublimation and exaltation in Tarafa’s psyche in forms of topography and shift of images (their size) serves to soothe the poet’s psyche.