The psychological effects of war in pre-Islamic poetry

Elegy (rithāʾ) is an emotional poetic genre intrinsically connected to human experience in Pre-Islamic Arabic poetry. It represents a sincere form of poetic expression centered on loss, manifested through weeping, lamentation, commemoration, and consolation. At its core lies a profound conception of humanity: one person mourning another, articulating intense and genuine emotions born of grief and sorrow, often accompanied by protest against death for claiming a beloved individual. In elegiac poetry, language serves as a vehicle for expressing pain, offering solace and patience, praising the deceased, enumerating their virtues, celebrating their achievements and legacy, and voicing deep anguish over their passing. Similarly, pride poetry (fakhr) has been closely associated with victory and heroism. Poets throughout history have consistently demonstrated heightened emotional responsiveness to their surroundings and superior capacity for articulation, owing to their artistic sensibilities and rhetorical skills in shaping emotion into poetic form. Consequently, poets across generations have confronted the universal human tragedy of death by elegizing deceased kin and commemorating their virtues. Through their praise, they fashioned symbolic tributes of honor and pride for the deceased. Thus, elegy emerged as a major genre within Arabic poetry. Women were not excluded from this tradition; indeed, their natural disposition, characterized by emotional tenderness, refined sensitivity, and intense distress in times of affliction, made them particularly suited to elegiac expression. Keywords: Wars; Psychological Effects; Pre-Islamic Poetry; Elegy (rithāʾ); Pride Poetry (fakhr)