Survey of the impact of typesetting in music and the meaning of discretional verses of the seven suspended odes (Muallaqat Saba a a)

Discretional Verses form a great part in muallaqat saba’a. The composers of these qa
'id have not only pictured their own poetic intentions, but also described their lovers’ places of residence, natural phenomena, roadster (camel), warfare, and other events. To do so and to give a bare outline of the scenes they are describing, they have kept a rhythmic effect, especially through the phonetic music of the letters. Since the poet needs to unveil the exact features and status of the described event to prolong the audience gaze in the process of sensational description, the poets of Muallaqat Saba’a have enriched their sensational descriptions with the element of music so that the phonetic aspect of their desired phenomena becomes more vivid to the audience. As the music of the letters unlike the metre can be different in each bayt from other bayts, using a proper typesetting, these seven poets have intensified the music and maintained a phonetic solidarity and adapted it to the desired meaning., Among these seven poets, Imru` al-Qais and Labid, have demonstrated more adjustment of word, meaning and the music of the letters, and the typesetting effect (especially naturalistic ones) in their poems, is more rigorous. The reason may be the greater number of discretional verses about nature in their muallaqats and their being more attentive to nature compared to other poets of Muallaqat Saba’a. Antare and Imro-ibn-kolsum have also taken advantage of martial music resulted from letters and epigram typesettings to the greatest extent, so in describing warfare the music of their poems is sharper and clearer, as these two have utilized letters which when put together recall the clinging of swords and harpoons and the commotion of war. On the other hand, discretional poems of Tarafa, Zuhayr, and Harith embrace less phonetics and the adaptation of word and meaning in their poems is less precise, which can be explained by two arguments: first, compared to Imru` al-Qais and Labid these three poets have been less concerned with sensational descriptions of nature, and second, they have achieved music in their poems through the prosodic metre.