Al-Jawahiri: The Geography of Writing and its Impact on Poetic Transformation

Abstract

Mohammed Mehdi al-Jawahiri is one of the most important poets whose poetry is dressed up in the heritage. However, there are different perspectives to view al-Jawahiri’s poetry at the top of which – I believe – is the place. Here I do not mean the philosophical dimension of the place, but the place in its geographical and environmental dimensions, with its trees, dreariness, beauty, water and snow, with the village that pulses in his poetry, and the city that looms large upon it. Here, I would stop at the “Spatial Geography” since the heritage has already been largely discussed. What made me discuss the geography in al-Jawahiry’s poems is the tremendous variety that is available in his texts due to his continuous wanderings. This means that his references to the heritage is not the most predominant in his poetry. The language that he exerted efforts to preserve its diction, and dive deep on its secrets, was not the sole basis for the poetic craft of al-Jawahiry. This language varies differs and changes in view of the change that occurs in the geographical locations.