The Centrality of the Self in the Poetry of the Ṣuʿlūk Poets: A Socio-Cultural Approach

Abstract

This study, in its entirety, seeks to move the poetry of the Ṣuʿlūk poets beyond the scope of traditional critical studies, which focus primarily on linguistic and rhetorical aspects, into the realm of cultural approaches that aim to uncover the implicit dimensions of their discourse through the binary opposition of center and margin (the dialectic of the self and the other). It also seeks to determine whether the Ṣuʿlūk poet succeeded in constructing an alternative poetic system that granted him superiority and enabled him to gain recognition.