The Historical Precedence of Al-Awad in Writing Blank Verse

(Mohammed bin Salem Safrani)

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Abstract

This paper attempts to prove that Muhammad H. Awad preceded the other Arab poets in writing blank verse; those poets include Nazik Al-Mala eka, Badr Shakir As-Siyyab, and Ali Ahmad Bakatheer. Evidence of this historical hypothesis is drawn from two blank verse poems published by Al-Awad in Al-Qibla newspaper in 1921. The paper starts with an introduction pointing out the research questions and goals. Then it discusses Al-Awad s life and his environment. Next, it tackles the major poets supposed to be the first poets of Arabic in writing blank verse. Then, I will address the main claim of the study; i.e. Al-Awad s precedence over the other poets in writing blank verse; this will be presented by investigating Al-Awad s poetry published in Al-Qibla newspaper, along with his poetical collections published later. The paper will also study Al-Awad s critical views about blank verse. And finally, an outline of the main results of this research paper will be given.
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