The prosodic phenomenon of metrical redundancy: A stylistic Study

Abstract

This paper studies the prosodic phenomenon of metrical redundancy which the early Arab prosodists allowed in the classic Arabic poetry but denied for the later poets.The study refuses, from a stylistic vantage point, the aesthetic foundations of the notion of metrical redundancy as in verse puncture or spread, excess, and transgression on the metrical level. The study presupposes that verse puncture is the result of a change in the music of the line of verse which generates another correct metre unhitherto noticed or felt by the poet.The study also presupposes that Al Khalil used the notion of verse puncture as metrical redundancy, starting with the overlap of metres resulting from puncture to invent the concept of circles which is based on the change from one metre into another through the addition of an extra syllable.This study uses this approach to advance the first theory explaining how Al Farahidi invented the metres of Arabic verse according to the system of metrical circles.