Longing in the Poetry of Al-Sharif Al-Radi: A Thematic Study

This research presents a profound analysis of the phenomenon of longing as a central structure and a semantic axis in the Diwan of Al-Sharif al-Radi. The study relied on the thematic approach, which transcends impressionistic readings to analyze recurring “themes” as recurrent intellectual obsessions, in order to uncover the creative vision of the poet. The scholarly material was distributed over a preliminary introduction and three chapters: • The first chapter reviewed the motives of longing: being an emotion of love, an experience of loss, or a nostalgia. • The second chapter came as an analysis of the manifestations of this theme, and a monitoring of its transformations between tranquil sorrow, violent physical pain, and longing mixed with hope and the prospect of meeting. • The third chapter was devoted to extracting the most important functions of longing, explaining its role as a tool for evoking memory, a means of building the poet’s identity, and a lyrical discourse for communicating with the other. The research concluded with a set of results, most notably: • The clarity of the centrality of the theme of longing and its thematic pivotality in al-Radi’s Diwan. • Extracting the functional roles of this theme and its variations in the studied poetic text. • Proving the efficiency of the thematic study in uncovering the latent semantic units behind the poetic texts of Al-Sharif al-Radi despite the diversity of their subjects.