Among all the Arabic poets the first place is assigned by almost universal consent to Mutanabbi, encomiast of the Hamdanide prince Saif al-daulah, who lived from A.H. 303-354 (A.D. 915-965) many of his poems have been translated into German, but few into any other language.
Like Shakespeare, he is a mine of quotations, and indeed collections of his ” wit and wisdom” have been made.
The former indeed is very considerable, and his merits are very similar to those of Lucan. Probably, however, the Arabic poet more often rises to the sublime.
That Arabic poetry could not rise beyond the styles which have been sketched is in the main due to the unsuitability of the Heat Belt for continuous intellectual effort, but in part to the elaborate technique which constitutes Arabic versification.
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When this was invented is wholly unknown; there is no difference between the earliest and the latest poets in this matter.
It combines a system of prosody as elaborate as that of Greek, with a rhyming system of its own, to which the ordinary European systems offer no parallel.
For this rhyme which contains numerous elements, pervades the whole poem, and constitutes its unity; an ode is classified by the letter in which it rhymes, and, whether there are two verses or a thousand, this rhyme must be maintained.
In Persian the metrical system is far easier, and this may be why that language has produced poetry suitable to the taste of Europe.
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Of the drama as a poetic style in Arabic perhaps the only example is a piece composed for the “shadow-play”, i.e., a performance behind curtains.