The Stylistics of Phonetic Layers in Khalil Hawi’s Poetry

The elements present in poems written by poets are the reason behind their distinction from regular, everyday language; however, each poet would make use of these elements in a way that is proportionate to their own inner emotions, different from others. As a result, each poet has a unique style which is shaped by connections among the poet’s personal set of poetic features.
The present study is an attempt to provide answers to the following question: To what extent has Khalil Hawi been able to incorporate his thoughts into his poetry? What are the instances in his poetry where his emotions are manifested more significantly than the phonetics? This study is based upon a hypothesis according to which the poet has successfully incorporated his emotions which are mostly full of sadness and frustration into the majority of musical elements of his poetry; these thoughts and ideas can be found in the external music with respect to his selection of rhymes. Even in the side music, the type of rhymes and their last letters along with their sounds express these thoughts. Given the vertical repetitions and other factors in the internal music of his poetry, his anxious soul is put on display; the same is true in the spiritual music as well.  

Review of Literature:
There has been a number of separate books and studies written about this poet which are not in line with the purposes of the present study; however, below are some of the most prominent works: Khalil Hawi’s Poetry (Derasah Fanniyah) by Ali Jumaah Aydi; Al-Eiqah fi al-Sher al-Arabi al-Hadith: Khalil Hawi Nemawzaj by Khamis Alwartani; Khalil Hawi Shaeir al-Hidathah va al-Rumanciah by Abdul Majid al-Hor; and “Derasah Osloubiyah fi Qasidah al-Bahar va al-Darwish la-Khalil Hawi”.

Using the descriptive method and content analysis through the study and examination of data, the present study seeks to investigate the stylistics of phonetic layers in Khalil Hawi’s complete set of poetry which includes five Divans: Nahr al-Remad, al-Naay va al-Reih, Biyader al-Jawu, al-Raad al-Jarig, and Min Jahim al-Comedia. Given the extensiveness of studies on stylistics, a single stylistic layer (the phonetic layer) was selected. 

Layer Stylistics

In Arabic, the equivalent for stylistics is “Osloubiyah” which is comprised of the word “Osloub”, derived from the main word, “Salb”.

Sounds and the Phonetic Layer

There are a variety of the music types in poetry. Certain known types including external music, side music, and internal music are introduced by Shafiei Kadkani. In this study, these types along with the spiritual music are examined in Khalil Hawi’s poetry.

External Music

External music is the area of Arabic prosody in poems. The majority of the poems written by the poet are in Bahr Ramal. The use of this Bahr relates the poem to a sad, sorrowful affection.

Side Music

Side music refers to musical manifestations shaped by repeating poetic words at the end of each verse. In conventional forms, prior to other items, the use of final rhymes are more common. There are a number of different rhymes in Arabic which includes: Mutiradif (synonyms), Mutiwater, Mutadarik, Muterakib, and Mutikawis.

Other aspects of this section involves the examination of the last letter of rhymes and Taqyiid in the rhymes of the examined poems.

Internal Music

Repetition is a prominent feature of internal music in poetry and a fundamental subject in art aesthetics. Vertical repetitions in the poetry are of two types: 1. Repetition of letters, nouns, verbs, expressions and sentences at the beginning of several verses; 2. the repetition of one or more verses in a single poem.

Puns

Puns refer to the spoken similarity between two words which are different in meaning. There has been no instances of the use of complete puns in the examined poems; however several incomplete puns were identified.

Rad al-Ajz ala al-Sadr

In Rad al-Ajz ala al-Sadr, one of the repeated words is placed at the end of the verse and the other at the beginning, Hashw, at the end of the first hemistich, or at the beginning of the second hemistich. A number of related samples are provided.

Spiritual Music

Includes paradox, symmetry, and allusion:
Paradox

The use of this device in Khalil Hawi’s Diwans is significantly frequent.

Symmetry

It is one of the most-used literary devices which are abundant in the examined poems.

Allusion

Allusions are references to a known anecdote, a famous poem, a proverb, or the name of a well-known individual, the story of whom is not expressed in a clear manner. A number of examples of this device are also provided.

The following were obtained in this study:
Khalil Hawi has put in his best effort to incorporate his inner states into the entire aspects of phonetic layers in his poems.
In the external music of his poems, Hawi has used rhythms that express his inner emotions. Given the examinations carried out on his rhymes, it was shown that out of his 42 poems, 22, 12, and 6 poems were written in Bahr Ramal, Bahr Rajaz, and Bahr Kamil, respectively. Moreover, there are two poems written in Bahr Wafir and Bahr Sarii as well.
He has also attempted to choose his rhymes with respect to his personal emotions. Out of his 42 poems, the type of rhymes in 27, 13, and 2 poems involve Mutiradif, Mutiwater, and Mutidarik. The last two type of rhymes are non-existent in the examined poems. As a result, 64.28% of rhymes across the entire poems in the Divan are Mutiradif (synonyms). Because according to experts and scholars, this type of rhymes can express the poet’s inner sorrow and sadness. Finally, 30.95 and 4.76% of rhymes are Mutiwater and Mutidarik, respectively.
In the internal music of Khalil Hawi’s poems, repetition is abundant; most of these repetitions are vertical and used in two manners. Out of his 42 poems, the first type of vertical repetition is used in 27 poems, i.e. 64.28%. The second type is present in only 11 poems. Vertical repetition of verses are observed in only 26.19% of his poems.