The Desert and Existential Alienation in Arabic Poetry: An Analytical Approach to Space and Poetic Consciousness

Abstract

This study examines the representations of the desert (al-baydāʾ) in the selected poetic models as an existential space that transcends its immediate spatial connotation, evolving into a symbolic structure that reflects states of existential alienation, ontological emptiness, and transformations in poetic consciousness across different historical periods.

       The study is grounded in a critical problem represented by the absence of a systematic methodological approach that deconstructs the desert as a semantic system generating alienation, rather than treating it merely as a descriptive or conventional symbolic element. The study adopts a textual analytical approach with a comparative dimension, based on the examination of selected poetic models from different historical stages, in order to reveal the mechanisms through which existential alienation is constructed via poetic imagery, silence, symbolic metaphor, and the structure of voice.

       The study concludes that, within the analyzed models, the desert has shifted from an external space into an internal structure reflecting the fragmentation of the self and existential anxiety. Furthermore, modern poetry has rearticulated this space within a more complex and profound existential vision, contributing to a re-reading of poetic space as an existential discourse open to questions of meaning and nothingness.