Weakness in the Poetry of Chaste Love Poets in the Umayyad Era

(A Semiotic Study)

Abstract

This study examines Weakness in the Poetry of Chaste Love Poets during the Umayyad Era: A Semiotic Study, considering weakness as a prominent emotional and semantic phenomenon in the experience of chaste love. Weakness is not restricted to physical frailty resulting from illness or exhaustion; rather, it encompasses psychological and emotional dimensions arising from love, deprivation, separation, longing, and grief. The study aims to reveal the semantic and aesthetic functions of weakness in Umayyad chaste love poetry by examining its major signs, including illness, emaciation, sleeplessness, tears, crying, fainting, sighing, and death, and by demonstrating how these manifestations are transformed from internal emotional states into poetic signs that reveal the depth of the lover's experience. The study adopts a semiotic approach to analyze selected poetic examples by prominent chaste love poets, namely Jamil Buthayna, Qays ibn al-Mulawwah, Qays ibn Dharih, Kathir Azza, and Tawbah ibn al-Humayyir. The research is divided into two main sections. The first examines weakness as a physical and psychological state, while the second explores weakness as a sign of the continuity of love, deprivation, and death. The study concludes that weakness in chaste love poetry does not merely signify physical incapacity or emotional defeat; rather, it frequently becomes a sign of the strength of love, sincerity of devotion, and persistence of attachment. Tears signify grief and loss, sleeplessness reflects the continuous mental presence of the beloved, while illness and emaciation signify the overwhelming power of love over the lover's body. Fainting represents the intensity of emotional shock, whereas death becomes a sign of ultimate sacrifice and the continuation of love beyond physical existence. The study also demonstrates that the forms and functions of weakness vary from one poet to another, while collectively forming a semantic network in which the body, place, time, the beloved's name, and death contribute to representing the chaste lover's experience.