From Quatrains to Sonnets: The Structural Impact of Arabic Verse on English Forms

Abstract

The cycle of exchange and influence between different literatures is a phenomenon that deserves a lot of investigation and study. In the past and the troubadour poets were influenced by the Arab poets through the cultural contact with the heritage and culture of Muslims in the eleventh century. The poem, the song or sonnet, which was started by the poet Giacomudi in the thirteenth century, is a poetic form that was influenced by troubadour poetry in its structure and content. Then it was developed by Dante and Petrarch in Italy in the fourteenth century, influenced by the troubadour poets. Thomas was the first to introduce the sonnet into English poetry in the sixteenth century, and then this poetic form became established with Shakespeare in the seventeenth century. The fact that Arabic poetry influenced the emergence of modern European poetry remained an indisputable issue for Western researchers for many centuries . This is what the well-known British orientalist Hamilton Gibb (1895-1971), professor of literature at the University of London (Institute of Oriental Studies), says. But in the middle of the nineteenth century, a revolution occurred in the position of European researchers in recognizing the reality of Arabic influences on European literature. This influence is what we proved in this paper.