The Function of Colors in Nouri Al Jarrah’s Poetry Case study: White, Green and Black Colors

Nouri Al-Jarrah is one of the contemporary Syrian poets who color has different functions in his poetries. The mentioned colors in his divan are to describe a thing or a phenomenon; or having metaphorical, ironic and sometimes allegorical meanings. The present article attempts to express and analyze the functions of green, white and black colors in his poetries with descriptive – analytical method. The results of the research indicate that the colors in Al-Jarrah’s poetry provide the basis for creating conflict, contradiction, ambiguity as well as sadness and grief; In other words, the poet plays with the audience’s traditional expectations against colors. From the statistical point of view and the frequency of the presence of colors in the poet’s poetry, neutral colors such as white and black have a wide presence in Al Jarrah’s poetry and in many situations the presence of these two colors is felt along with other colors. The mentioned colors in addition to their symbolic function have negated or neutralized the meaning of other colors.