Methods of Literary Criticism in the Age of Al-jaheliah

This article is discussed about literary schools in the age of Aljaheliah. Although the majority of literary critics believe literature of Aljaheliah lacked any form of methodized and scientific literary criticism, the richness of Arabic literature of the day makes existence of such criticism seem inevitable with this in mind, and also regarding the tactfulness of criticism and the literary texts available. This article is ambitioned to categorize four literary schools according to which literary experts of the day used to judge in poetic contests and literary assemblies. These four schools are technical criticism, criticism based on description, criticism to the more celebrated literature and criticism with regard to categorizing the poets. Each and every of these schools have its own specific features critical factors. In technical criticism, errors of wording and meaning, and also rules of verse and observing rhyme are studied, and reminded to the poet. Critic of the second school, namely description criticism, deals with principles and rules of literary criticism, which of course were not methodized but it was understood by a literary man. The critic then formulated them in to description sentences which spoke of his feelings about that.