Internal Criticism and External Context for the Literary

Text according to Ibn Qutaibah.

Saleh A.A.AI Khodhirey

Associate Professor, Arabic Language Department, Teacher's College, Riyadh

Abstract: This study investigated the efforts exerted by Ab u

Mohammed Abd ullah Bin Musl im Din Quta ibah (213-276H) wh o was

contemporaneo us to the beg innings of criti cal writi ng and tackled a

number of literar y criticism issues in a way coming from the inside of

the literary text such as: style technique, the poem approach, the

corre lation of the poe m lines, the innovation of poe tic balances, and

poets' doctrines, He also d iscussed several issues as derived from the

externa l context of the literary text such as: reasoning the rclical

prologue as der ived from the externa l context in whi ch the poem was

born, the incentiv es mot ivatin g the poet's ideas, and the cultural context

of the critic.

The study has concluded several results, and of which are: He was fully

famili ar wi th the style levels, and thus he was able to emphasize the

uniqueness of the style of the Holy Qu ran over oth er types of styles;

and he is oldest cr itic who ind icated that there is a technical app roach

wit hin the poem, a matt er wh ich has motivated seve ral Arab scholars

and orientalists to refut e his perspective. It has show n tha t he is the first

to indicat e that the non-correlation of the poem's lines is a sig n of

mann erism, .and he left the door open for innovation in balances in

conformity with certain controls, and he found some thing in the

externa l context that ass ists in revealin g the ambig uities of the literary

text. He also conside red the externa l context surro u nd ing the text as a

means for just ifying the relical prologu e. He was able to attribute the

attenua tion of the poet's poe try to the incenti ves leading to writing

poetry. He man aged in protecting the critical stud ies from the

domination of ph ilosoph ical culture.