An Ornamentalist View of Metaphor in Arabic Literary Theory

The aim of the present paper is to examine the kind of thinking and the chain of assumptions that lie behind the reduction of metaphor to a mere ornament in Arabic literary theory.   For this purpose, Arabic ornamentalist thinking is traced from the third century A.H. (the ninth century A.D.) to the seventh century A.H. (the thirteenth century A.D.).  This is not to say, however, that the seventh century marks the end of such thinking in Arabic literary theory, but that at that time the Arabic literary theory, and the theory of metaphor, was developed into fixtures with an increasing emphasis given to form over content and the art of verbal expression in general.  Inordinate attention was given to ornate style, and rhetoric became an arena for displaying verbal acrobatics.  The axioms, "closeness of resemblance" and "congruity of metaphorical elements," represent metaphor's highest degree of formalization and stereotyping.  That is why some of the images in classical theory are mainly based on complete parallelism between the objects compared, particularly with regard to form, size and color.  From that time onwards, the fixtures of the classical theory have been kept intact.   Metaphor, and rhetoric in general, is nowadays reduced to textbooks to be studied in abstract and rigid terms developed by the classical theory.  Arabic rhetoric is a dead discipline: it is merely an ornamental repertoire of figures that could only be used as a sweet adorner for the language.