This research examines the phenomenon of platonic (ʿUdhrī) love poetry (Ghazal), focusing on its distinctive characteristics that have led to the formation of a robust collective identity encompassing all poets of this genre. These poets formed a unique community, marked by traits different from those of the individual elements that composed this new complex.

The study aims to observe the construction of this identity through two fundamental pillars: masculinity and love. The emotional axis is considered the most central in the Udhri narrative, necessitating an examination of the masculinity of its authors due to its close connection with its counterpart, femininity, with love serving as the link between them.

The research employs psychoanalytic theory and its tools to analyze selected examples of ʿUdhrī poetry, observing the fluctuating presence of masculinity and the love that has shed its idealistic guise, involuntarily tending towards psychological disturbance due to the intense emotional extremism and eradication of individuality experienced by the platonic love poets.

The study concludes that the masculinity of the platonic love poets is present as an innate characteristic, evident in some aspects of their lives. However, it is often absent due to factors in their biographies that led to an imbalance in their masculinity. Furthermore, ʿUdhrī love can be stripped of the idealistic framework it has been associated with for centuries when one observes the psychological tendencies in the poets' work that indicate disturbances in some emotional processes of the psyche. This suggests that this love is of an unstable emotional nature in its general balance.

Title

مجلّة أنساق

Publisher

جامعة قطر

Publisher Country

Qatar

Publication Type

Online only

Volume

8

Year

--

Pages

31-56