Poetic Taste and the Transformations of Meaning: A New Reading of the Poetic Duels between Jarir and Al-Farazdaq in Light of Reception Theory

Abstract

The Research explores the transformations of poetic taste in the poetry of naqa'id (poetic duels), through an analytical reading of the naqa'id between Jarir and Al-Farazdaq, based on Reception Theory, which places the audience at the center of the literary process as an active partner in the production of meaning. The study traces how the satirical structure of naqa'id shaped the audience's horizon of expectation during the Umayyad era, and how these poems responded to the expectations of recipients who were not merely consumers of the text, but partners in its reproduction through tribal, social, and rhetorical interaction.

The Research also highlights the dialectical nature of naqa'id as an open poetic debate subject to contextual transformations, reflecting a conflict over identity between the two poets' tribes. The poems were not produced in a vacuum, but within a space charged with political and social tensions, making reception a vital moment that reveals the sensitivity and transformations of popular taste.

The study includes both theoretical and applied sections, namely: concepts of taste and the semantic evolution of the critical term, the horizon of reception, poetic taste and the horizon of expectation and its transformations in the poetry of naqa'id, and an analysis of a selected example from the naqa'id of Jarir and Al-Farazdaq. It demonstrates how public taste was shaped and transformed between appreciation of linguistic skill and rhetorical ingenuity, and allegiance to tribal identity and belonging.