The Dialectic of Artifice and Emotion in al-Tihami’s Panegyric of Abu al- Mani: A Stylistic Study

Abstract

This stylistic study seeks to uncover the dialectic of artifice and emotion in al-Tihami’s panegyric of Abu al-Mani, through a rhetorical and aesthetic reading based on an analysis of six interrelated structural levels: the poetic lexicon, syntactic and rhythmic structure, figurative imagery, discursive structure, emotional manifestations, and finally the interpretive psychological structure, as the highest level at which all textual elements intersect. The significance of the study lies in proposing a new approach to al-Tihami’s panegyric, viewing it as a multi-layered aesthetic discourse rather than merely a linguistic structure or a direct emotional response. This perspective reveals the capacity of classical poetry to articulate a complex emotional vision and an advanced artistic consciousness. The study concludes that al-Tihami succeeds in harmonizing the precision of artifice with the intensity of emotion within a unified poetic fabric, where the selective deployment of lexical fields intertwines with emotional energy, and affective tension is organized through a disciplined syntactic architecture, while figurative imagery becomes a tool for exploring the inner self prior to representing the outer world. The findings further demonstrate that al-Tihami’s panegyric discourse embeds an underlying argumentative and psychological dimension that opens the text to semantic levels transcending its immediate structure. Accordingly, the praised figure emerges as a symbol of protection and equilibrium rather than a specific historical individual. The study affirms that the dialectic of artifice and emotion constitutes an intrinsic structural principle in this text, endowing it with a paradigmatic value that can contribute to the development of aesthetic approaches to classical poetic texts.