Traditionalist and innovative tendencies in classical Arabic literary criticism

In the fourth century Hijri, traditionalist and innovative approaches emerged in Arabic literary criticism and literary criticism debates were made around these orientations. With the literary criticism debates in this century, Arab literary criticism has made significant progress. In the period of Jahiliyyah, literary criticism, which was far from objective criteria, without showing any justification and with improvisational generalizations and minor criteria, was made mostly by focusing on poems and poets. With Islam, prose, which was in the second place in the period of Jahiliyyah, developed in the Arabic language in terms of wording, meaning, style and imagination, and the principles and rules revealed by Islam in Arabic literary criticism were taken as basis. In the first part of this study, the situation of literary criticism in the period of the Jahiliyyah, the oldest known history of Arabic literary criticism, and then the Prophet Muhammed and the Rashidun caliphs was examined, and then the influence of the period of Jahiliyyah and Islam in literature in the Umayyad period was investigated. In the second part of this study, the situation of literary criticism in the first period of the Abbasids is discussed, especially the books written on Arab literary criticism in the third century AH and the criteria, and the most common literary criticisms set forth in these books are drawn. The increase in scientific activities in this century, the increase in translation movements from different languages, especially Persian, Greek, and Hindi with the support of the Abbasid caliphs, the change of the Arabic language in terms of wording, meaning, style and imagination for the second time with the effect of the intermingling of the Arabs with other societies has caused new and old debates in Arabic literary criticism. In the third part, the traditionalist and innovative tendencies that emerged in Arabic literary criticism in parallel with the above change in the fourth century AH, and the debates between the poet Buhturi, who represents the traditionalists, and Abu Temmâm, who represents the innovators, in the second half of this century, the new and old ones clustered around Mutanebbi. In addition, the conciliatory approach, which tried to unite both, was also mentioned. The critics of this period focused on poems and poets, put forward certain criteria and different perspectives on Arabic literary criticism, and made important contributions to the formation of the science of rhetoric with their discussions and analyzes. In this study, the subjects mentioned in the literary discussions mostly on poems and poets are emphasized, and the effect of these discussions on the Arabic literary criticism is explained. Keywords: Arab, Literature, Criticism, Tradition, Innovation, Discussion