The Role of Imagery in Conveying Emotion in Adonis’ Palestinian Poetry

Emotion is an important element in poetry. Other elements including imagery must be at its service, since their value is due to emotion. Adonis, as one of the most innovative contemporary Arab poets, is concerned with humanitarian affairs and problems. Love for the homeland and brotherhood are of great importance in his poetry, especially in his Palestinian poems. On the other hand, his poetry is full of poetic imagery. The question raised here is to what extent the Palestinian poems of Adonis, as a sample of all his poems, carry emotions and to what extent the images in his poems can convey these emotions to the reader. The analysis of this hypothesis is important because some of the critics believe that Adonis’s poetry lacks emotion. On the other hand, there is a consensus on the poetic imagery of Adonis. Thus, this article analyzes the emotions of hope, despair, love, sadness and sorrow in the Palestinian poetry of Adonis, and studies their correspondence to the images of the poetry. The results demonstrate that Adonis’ poems, like other modern poems, have deep and original emotions, and that since the poet’s emotions and thought are intertwined, not exaggerated like romantic and classic poets, these emotions seem intangible and ambiguous. Adonis, using imageray, especially symbolic ones like mystery and myth which need more analysis, conveys human emotional experiences, the source of all of which is love for the homeland and fellow human beings. This results in awakening the conscience of the Arab people and inspires them with hope.