The Poetics of Openness: Generic Intertextuality in Contemporary Arabic Poetry(Selected Models)

Abstract

This study examines the phenomenon of “generic intertextuality” as a major aesthetic strategy in contemporary Arabic poetry, tracing the transformation of the poetic text from “generic purity” to a “poetics of openness.” The research seeks to reveal how contemporary poets(Darwish, Adonis, and Saadi Youssef) have employed techniques beyond the scope of traditional lyricism, such as “narrative storytelling,” which has granted the poem a temporal and epic dimension, and “dramatic structure,” which has broken the dominance of the single voice in favor of polyphony and the conflict of masks. In this study, we seek to demonstrate that this intertextuality is not merely a formal addition,but rather an “existential necessity” imposed by the nature of fragmented modern experience, whereby the poem has become an “interstitial space” in which visual composition intersects with theatrical dialogue and novelistic description. Through the poetic models selected for this study, we show how the “poetics of openness” has redefined the concept of “poeticity” by shifting it from the level of the verse line and external rhythm to the level of “total vision” and complex scenic construction, thus rendering contemporary Arabic poetry a trans-generic text capable of absorbing the contradictions of historical, political, and philosophical reality with high artistic flexibility and distinguished linguistic proficiency