The Language of Poetry: Tool or Performance? A Stylistic Analysis of a Classical Arabic Line of Verse

Addressing the controversial question of the nature of poetic language, the paper seeks to prove, with the help of stylistics, that the language of poetry is not just a tool that can be discussed in isolation from the poetry which language is said to convey. It rather turns into the poem itself so that it becomes impossible to separate the poem from its language. The paper concludes that the poetic language used by the poet creates a linguistic reality that exists on its own in language just as the physical reality it describes exists on its own.