POETINC: Poetic Incorporation

    From The Encyclopedia of Arabic Rhetoric

    التضمين، الإيداع
    POETINC: Poetic Incorporation
    CategoryLinguistic Embellishments (ʿilm al-badīʿ)
    SubcategoryIntertextuality
    Built upon9 sources
      
    Annotation Unit
    ARDT CodePOETINC
    Level1 (Rhetorical device)
       ↳ Has 2 subtypes
      
    Included in Taxonomy
    ARDTv0.1.1
    v0.1.0
      
    External Identifiers
    BALAGHAScorePOETINC
    BalaghaBaseQ272
    OpenAlexW4415376878
      
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    🔗 Live DOI10.64393/balagha.Q272
     
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    Definition

    Poetic Incorporation (al-taḍmīn, al-īdāʿ) is an Arabic rhetorical device in which the poet incorporates into a new poem wording from another poem - whether a complete line or more, a hemistich, or a smaller portion - drawn either from the poet's own earlier poetry or from the poetry of someone else.[1][2][3][4][5][6]

    Background Information

    The name al-taḍmīn ("incorporation" or "inclusion") reflects the operation of placing poetic wording from another poem within one's own poetry: al-Qazwīnī describes it as poetry "incorporating" (yuḍammin, يُضَمِّن) something from another's poetry, while Abū Hilāl al-ʿAskarī describes the borrowed material as being inserted among the verses of one's poem.[7][8]

    The term al-taḍmīn is used in different senses across classical sources. In prosody, it denotes a line syntactically dependent on the following line. This page concerns the badīʿ sense: the incorporation of poetic wording from an earlier poem into a new composition.[9] Some authorities distinguish the two terms by the amount of material incorporated, using al-taḍmīn for the incorporation of a complete line or more and al-īdāʿ for the incorporation of a hemistich or part of one.[3]

    Classical sources treat Islamic Quotation, Poetic Incorporation, and Allusion with considerable overlap, and the same instance may be classified differently across sources.

    To support operational identification, this encyclopedia distinguishes between:

    1. Intertextuality where wording from an earlier text is incorporated into a new composition (Islamic Quotation & Poetic Incorporation), and
    2. Intertextuality where an earlier text is evoked without reproducing its wording (Allusion).

     

    Device Primary rhetorical act
    Islamic Quotation (al-iqtibās) Embedding recognisable wording from the Qurʾān or hadith into a new composition, without attribution. Invoking the authority of the Qurʾān or ḥadīth lends authority to the new text.
    Poetic Incorporation (al-taḍmīn) Carrying over recognisable wording from an existing poem into a new composition. Reusing poetry while preserving its recognisability makes the new text more memorable.
    Allusion (al-talmīḥ) Making an indirect referential gesture toward a known story or poem, without carrying over its wording. Linking the next text to an established text makes the new text more memorable.

    Linguistic Operations

    • Usāma ibn Munqidh defined it as "a line containing words from another line."[9]
    • The incorporating poet embeds recognisable wording from an existing poem — a complete line or more, a hemistich, or a smaller portion — into a new poetic composition.[1][9][3][7][10]
    • The incorporated wording is joined to its new surroundings through suitable contextual and verbal links so that it forms a coherent part of the new composition.[3]
    • Minor alteration of the borrowed wording is permissible where needed to fit it into the meaning of the new discourse.[2][11][12]
    • When the incorporated poetry is not well known, the poet indicates that it belongs to another poet; when it is already well known, no such indication is necessary.[7][10][1][3]
    • The borrowed wording may be placed in a context different from its original one so that its significance is altered in the new composition.[13][3][14]
    • The best kind of al-taḍmīn is when the new text adds to the original the use of a further rhetorical device — such as al-tawriya (pun / innuendo) or al-tashbīh (simile) — and thereby enhances the rhetorical effect.[1][15][16]
    • The borrowed line may be placed in the mouth of a character — such as the songstress in a wine poem — in which case it functions as part of a description rather than as a proof-text.[13]

    The boundary between Poetic Incorporation and Allusion turns on whether wording is carried over from the source. Poetic Incorporation requires that recognisable wording from the source poem be present in the new composition. Formal adaptation — including modification of wording to satisfy metrical requirements — is permitted and does not disqualify the device, provided the borrowed wording remains recognisable. Where no wording is carried over and only a referential gesture is made, the device is Allusion rather than Poetic Incorporation.

    Recognition

    • Look for wording recognisable as originating in another poem, whether a complete line or more, a hemistich, or a smaller portion.[7][10]
    • If the incorporated poetry is not well known, look for an indication that the wording belongs to another poet; such an indication is unnecessary when the source is already well known.[7][10]
    • Minor changes to the borrowed wording do not exclude Poetic Incorporation where the source remains recognisable in its new context.[11][12]

    Communicative Enhancements

    • When the new text layers an additional rhetorical device onto the borrowed line, it acquires rhetorical force beyond what the original carried.[1][15][16]
    • The borrowed line's meaning may be transformed or redirected by the new context.[13][3][14]
    • Participatory recognition: Where the borrowing is unacknowledged, the device depends on the audience recognising the source. This act of recognition turns reception into participation: the audience reconstructs the intertextual link for itself, producing rhetorical pleasure through shared literary memory.
    • Semantic reactivation: When the borrowed line is placed in a new context, its original meaning remains active alongside its new meaning. The rhetorical force arises from the tension between the inherited meaning and the new application, allowing the new poem to redirect or reframe the earlier verse without erasing it.
    • Intertextual depth: Because the borrowed wording carries with it the memory of its original poetic setting — its occasion, speaker, and genre — the new composition acquires an additional semantic layer that could not be produced by the new poem alone.
    • Rhetorical augmentation: When the incorporating poet adds a further rhetorical device — such as al-tawriya or al-tashbīh — to the borrowed line, the resulting expression acquires rhetorical force beyond that of the original through added semantic or formal complexity.

    Applying the Recognition Framework

    The information on this page can be used to evaluate whether this device is present in a candidate lexical item using the Specific Device Recognition part of the Universal Framework for Identifying Arabic Rhetorical Devices:

    • Use the Definition, Mechanism, and Recognition sections of this page in Step 1.
    • Apply the substitution test in Step 2.
    • Consider contextual indicators in Step 3.
    • Use the Diagnostic Communicative Enhancements section of this page in Step 4.

    Subtypes of Poetic Incorporation

    Poetic incorporation may occur with or without an indication that the incorporated wording belongs to another poet: when the incorporated poetry is not well known, such an indication is given, whereas no such indication is necessary when it is already well known.[7][10][3]

    POETINC-UNK: Unacknowledged Poetic Incorporation (al-taḍmīn bi-lā tanbīh)

    Annotation Unit
    ARDTPOETINC-UNK
    Level2 (Subtype)
    BalaghaBaseQ366
    Official Arabic nameal-taḍmīn bi-lā tanbīh[3]

    A form of Poetic Incorporation in which the incorporated poetry is already well known, so no indication that it belongs to another poet is necessary.[10][3]

    أقولُ لمعشرٍ غَلِطوا وغَضُّوا / مِن الشيخِ الرَّشيدِ وأَنكَروهُ / هوَ ابنُ جَلا وطَلَّاعُ الثَّنَايا / مَتى يَضَعِ العِمامةَ تَعرِفوهُ

    "I say to a group who erred and turned away from the wise elder and rejected him: he is Ibn Jalā, the one who surmounts all heights — when he sets down his turban, you will know him."

    Explanation
    Cited by Naṣīf (2012) as an example of incorporation with minor alteration. The final hemistich (huwa bnu jalā wa-ṭallāʿu l-thanāyā / matā yaḍaʿi l-ʿimāmata taʿrifūhu) derives from a well-known line of the poet Suḥaym ibn Wathīl, incorporated here with slight wording changes. No attribution is given, as the source is widely recognised.[2]

    فَبِتُّ وَالأَرْضُ فِرَاشِي وَقَدْ غَنَّتْ "قِفَا نَبْكِ" مَصَارِينِي

    "I spent the night with the earth as my bed, while my intestines sang 'Stop and weep.'"

    Explanation
    The phrase qifā nabki ("Stop, let us weep") is the famous opening of Imruʾ al-Qays's Muʿallaqa. No attribution is given, as the line is universally recognised. The borrowed phrase is placed in the mouth of the poet's hungry stomach, illustrating how the borrowed line's meaning is changed — even inverted — in the new context,[13] producing comic bathos from an elegiac source.

    Through smoke we hurried, frightened but not gone;
    "Keep calm and carry on," I urged them on.

    Explanation
    The familiar wording "Keep calm and carry on" is incorporated into the new poem without any indication that it has been borrowed. Because the expression is already widely recognisable, no acknowledgement of its source is needed.

    POETINC-AKN: Acknowledged Poetic Incorporation (al-taḍmīn maʿa al-tanbīh)

    Annotation Unit
    ARDTPOETINC-AKN
    Level2 (Subtype)
    BalaghaBaseQ367
    Official Arabic nameal-taḍmīn maʿa al-tanbīh[3]

    A form of Poetic Incorporation in which the incorporated poetry is not well known, so the poet indicates that it belongs to another poet.[7][10][3]

    إذا ضاقَ صَدري وخِفتُ العِدا / تمثَّلتُ بيتاً بحالي يَليقُ / فباللهِ أبلُغُ ما أَرتَجي / وباللهِ أدفعُ ما لا أُطيقُ

    "When my chest tightened and I feared my enemies, I recalled a line suited to my condition: 'By God I reach what I hope for, and by God I repel what I cannot bear.'"

    Explanation
    The poet explicitly signals that the final verse is incorporated from another poem through the phrase تمثلت بيتًا بحالي يليق ("I recalled a verse suited to my condition"). Al-Taftāzānī identifies the incorporated verse as belonging to Muslim ibn al-Walīd al-Anṣārī. The example therefore illustrates al-taḍmīn maʿa al-tanbīh: the borrowing is acknowledged as another poet's wording even though the original poet need not be named within the incorporating poem.[10]

    يقول الشاعر متضمِّنًا بيتًا للمتنبي: "وفي المنفى أُردِّد مع أبي الطيب: عَلى قَدْرِ أَهلِ العَزمِ تَأتي العَزائِمُ"

    The poet says, incorporating a line from al-Mutanabbī: "And in exile I repeat with Abū al-Ṭayyib: 'Ambitions come in proportion to those who hold them.'"

    Explanation
    The poet explicitly names al-Mutanabbī (Abū al-Ṭayyib), thereby indicating that the incorporated wording belongs to another poet. Explicitly naming the poet is one way of providing the tanbīh characteristic of al-taḍmīn maʿa al-tanbīh, avoiding the charge of poetic theft.[1]

    An unknown poet wrote, "The frost will cease";
    I kept those borrowed words and waited for peace.

    Explanation
    The first line explicitly indicates that the incorporated wording belongs to another poet. The poet need not be named: the indication that the wording is borrowed provides the tanbīh characteristic of al-taḍmīn maʿa al-tanbīh.

    Notes

    • The term al-taḍmīn has two distinct senses in classical Arabic literary theory: (1) the prosodical sense (syntactic dependence of one line on the next), and (2) the badīʿ sense (incorporation of another poet's words). This page concerns sense (2) exclusively.[9]
    • ʿAkkāwī (1996) records that some classical scholars gave varying definitions of the device, particularly around formal dependence between the incorporated and incorporating line.[9]
    • Heinrichs (1998) identifies al-tawriya and al-tashbīh as examples of rhetorical enhancement added to the borrowed line, but not as necessary conditions of the device.[1]
    • Some later rhetorical treatments use al-iqtibās in a broader sense that overlaps with poetic incorporation, extending beyond Qurʾānic and prophetic quotation to include other borrowed expressions.[17]

    References

    1. ↑ a b c d e f g W. P. Heinrichs, ‘Rhetorical Figures’, in Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature, ed. Julie Scott Meisami and Paul Starkey (London: Routledge, 1998), 659, ISBN 0415068088. DOI: 10.4324/9780203020425
    2. ↑ a b c Ḥafnī Nāṣif, Muḥammad Diyāb, Sultan Muḥammad and Muṣṭafā Ṭammām, Durūs al-Balāgha (Beirut: Dār Ibn Ḥazm, 2012), 126, ISBN 9786144162798.
    3. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l Pierre Cachia, The Arch Rhetorician: Or The Schemer’s Skimmer: A Handbook of Late Arabic Badīʻ Drawn from ʻAbd al-Ghanī an-Nābulsī’s Nafaḥāt al-Azhār ʻala Nasamāt al-Asḥār, Studies in Arabic Language and Literature 3 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1998), pp. 122-123; §168, ISBN 9783447040327.
    4. ↑ Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Qazwīnī, known as al-Khaṭīb al-Qazwīnī, al-Īḍāḥ fī ʿUlūm al-Balāgha: al-Maʿānī wa-al-Bayān wa-al-Badīʿ, ed. and comm. Ibrāhīm Shams al-Dīn (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 2003), 316-318, ISBN 9782745139078.
    5. ↑ Saʿd al-Dīn al-Taftāzānī, al-Muṭawwal: Sharḥ Talkhīṣ Miftāḥ al-ʿUlūm, ed. ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd Hindāwī, Shurūḥ al-Talkhīṣ 3, 3rd ed. (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 2013), 725-728, ISBN 9782745131768.
    6. ↑ Badawī Ṭabāna, Muʿjam al-Balāgha al-ʿArabiyya, 3rd rev. and expanded ed. (Jeddah: Dār al-Manāra; Riyadh: Dār al-Rifāʿī, 1988), 354-357.
    7. ↑ a b c d e f g Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Qazwīnī, known as al-Khaṭīb al-Qazwīnī, al-Īḍāḥ fī ʿUlūm al-Balāgha: al-Maʿānī wa-al-Bayān wa-al-Badīʿ, ed. and comm. Ibrāhīm Shams al-Dīn (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 2003), 316, ISBN 9782745139078.
    8. ↑ Badawī Ṭabāna, Muʿjam al-Balāgha al-ʿArabiyya, 3rd rev. and expanded ed. (Jeddah: Dār al-Manāra; Riyadh: Dār al-Rifāʿī, 1988), 355.
    9. ↑ a b c d e Inʿām Fawwāl ʿAkkāwī, Al-Muʿjam al-Mufaṣṣal fī ʿUlūm al-Balāgha: Al-Badīʿ wa-al-Bayān wa-al-Maʿānī (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1996), 374-375.
    10. ↑ a b c d e f g h Saʿd al-Dīn al-Taftāzānī, al-Muṭawwal: Sharḥ Talkhīṣ Miftāḥ al-ʿUlūm, ed. ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd Hindāwī, Shurūḥ al-Talkhīṣ 3, 3rd ed. (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 2013), 725, ISBN 9782745131768.
    11. ↑ a b Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Qazwīnī, known as al-Khaṭīb al-Qazwīnī, al-Īḍāḥ fī ʿUlūm al-Balāgha: al-Maʿānī wa-al-Bayān wa-al-Badīʿ, ed. and comm. Ibrāhīm Shams al-Dīn (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 2003), 318, ISBN 9782745139078.
    12. ↑ a b Saʿd al-Dīn al-Taftāzānī, al-Muṭawwal: Sharḥ Talkhīṣ Miftāḥ al-ʿUlūm, ed. ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd Hindāwī, Shurūḥ al-Talkhīṣ 3, 3rd ed. (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 2013), 728, ISBN 9782745131768.
    13. ↑ a b c d Basil Hatim, Arabic Rhetoric: The Pragmatics of Deviation from Linguistic Norms, LINCOM Studies in Communication 04 (Munich: Lincom Europa, 2010), 185, ISBN 9783929075731.
    14. ↑ a b Badawī Ṭabāna, Muʿjam al-Balāgha al-ʿArabiyya, 3rd rev. and expanded ed. (Jeddah: Dār al-Manāra; Riyadh: Dār al-Rifāʿī, 1988), 356.
    15. ↑ a b Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Qazwīnī, known as al-Khaṭīb al-Qazwīnī, al-Īḍāḥ fī ʿUlūm al-Balāgha: al-Maʿānī wa-al-Bayān wa-al-Badīʿ, ed. and comm. Ibrāhīm Shams al-Dīn (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 2003), 317, ISBN 9782745139078.
    16. ↑ a b Saʿd al-Dīn al-Taftāzānī, al-Muṭawwal: Sharḥ Talkhīṣ Miftāḥ al-ʿUlūm, ed. ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd Hindāwī, Shurūḥ al-Talkhīṣ 3, 3rd ed. (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 2013), 727, ISBN 9782745131768.
    17. ↑ Ayman Amin Abd Al-Ghani, Al-Kāfī fī al-Balāgha: Al-Bayān, wa al-Badiʿ wa al-Maʿānī (Cairo: Dār al-Tawfīqiyya lil-Turāth, 2011), 307-314.



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