The Color Poetry of Ibn Khafaja

Colors are amony the most salient natural elements in our environment. People have used colors in their clothes, home appliances and the tools which they use since ancient times. Poets, too, have laced their poems with colors found in nature. Arabic poetry in Andalusia has enjoyed great positive developmrnts in the context of the beautiful nature in this land. Among Andalucian poets, Ibn Khafaja is more famous than others for describing nature. Hence there are more uses o colors in his poetry collection than other poets. He has used his perceptiveness, deep feelings and sense of beauty to artistically integrate colors in his description of nature. The best witness to this claim is the many odes in which the poet frequently uses colors; so much so that these researchers were convinced to label these odes as “color poetry”.