The Intertextuality in the Poetry of Abu Al-Tayeb al-Mutanabbi

Abstract

The theory of intertextuality, with which the western critics were concerned, illustrates the relationship between the literary texts with respect to the influence of the former texts on the formation of the following texts or what is called the overlap of texts. This terminology comes into view in the second half of the twentieth century by Julia Cristephia who benefited from the researches of the Russian critic Bakhtin who studied the works of the novalist .
According to Cristephia, the intertexuality means the generation of a text from another text. Then, they together go into a dialogue and scientific relationship. This was in contrast to Rivatir's opinion, where he mentioned that the intertexuality does not restrict to the relationship between a text of previous texts; however, it exceeds to discuss the connection between a text with the following texts. He assesses the work at the moment of writing and reading respectively which gives a more important role to the reader and reading in achieving the intertexuality of the text.

This terminology was expandedly utilised by Arab critics in the eighth decade of the twentieth century; nevertheless, its implementation was rare. This research attempts to investigate the literary, religious, and cultural intertextuality in the Abu Al-Tayyib Al-Mutanabi's poetry whose collection of poems were full of these intertexualities. Most of his work was indirect which confirms the poet's profession in his poetic work which leads the researcher to divide this study into three sections.