جمال الأرابيسك في شعر بودلير
Abstract
Arabesque is a sort of genuine Arab Ornamentation Art, which consists of straight and zigzagged lines made of tree leaves, plants and geometrical shapes, that have decorated the domes of mosques and churches in the Arab World throughout history. These wooden antique works decorate the old popular quarters of Egypt or embellish the old houses of Damascus.
But this art has also become a poetic phenomenon which we can find in European poems, particularly French ones.
Indeed, it is astonishing to see that the letter is an artistic drawing or a plastic art script and that those straight lines or those zigzagged lines hide behind human conceptions and philosophies that are the outcome of a brilliant vision and a mature mind who looked at the universe from various perspectives. Therefore, this has resulted in an overwhelming revolution against the traditions of French Romantic Poetry.
Indeed, this is the vision of our genius poet Baudelaire who did not only see the Arabesque as a script game, but also as a word game and a good command of language. Therefore, the Arabesque appeared as a rhetorical art that embellished French poetry, and a feature that characterized it among thousands of poems.
What is Arabesque? What is its journey which began in Baghdad and reached France? How could Baudelaire change this ornamenting art into a poetic phenomenon that beautified his poems and made them immortal throughout history and ages.
In this research, I try to find answers to these questions aided by many of illustrative examples, selected from Baudelaire poetic library.