The Social Impetus in Pre-Islamic Poetry: A Sociocultural Study

Abstract

Arabic poetry, throughout its various historical periods, has been shaped by a range of impulses. Some are psychological, associated with the poet’s inner emotional responses generated by dysfunctional patterns of family upbringing, while others are social and connected to class distinctions and social stratification within the same community, including poverty, the deterioration of the social or tribal order, voluntary abandonment of place, and other related circumstances. Both types of impulses influence the behavior of the human being/poet, who is innately disposed toward the desire for survival and the fear of annihilation.

Against this background, the present study seeks to identify the socio-environmental stimuli operating in the pre-Islamic period and to examine their positive and negative effects on the formation of the poet’s personality. The poet endeavored, on the one hand, to present himself as adopting a stance of rejection toward certain social customs and traditions, a position that could result in his marginalization. On the other hand, he submitted to the overwhelming power of time, which weighed heavily upon him and which he perceived as a fatal system that the individual was incapable of confronting or resisting.

This condition engendered within the poet feelings of helplessness, lack of resourcefulness and strength, and a diminished capacity for meaningful emotional engagement with the realities of life and the events surrounding him. Such a condition may ultimately signify an acceptance of defeat at both the spiritual and cultural levels.