The Philosophical Aporias of Silence and Taciturnity in the poetry of Percy Bysshe Shelley and Almu’allaqât

Abstract

This thesis argues that taciturn poetics in the poetry of Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) and Almu’allaqât (600 AD) produce an irresolvable moral dilemma between settling for temporal identity and aspiring to obtain a transcendental identity. The works examined play with the cohesion of the narrative voice and with the representative voice of the poetic discourse. There are moments in these poems where authentic information is withheld and sometimes omitted, and where cohesion of the narrative voice is destabilized to establish philosophical aporias concerning the poets’ relationships to their histories and environments. They also produce meta-personae that perform the poetic subject’s struggle to achieve self-definition. These characteristics create philosophical interest in how the poets psychologically negotiate the inconsistent desire to obtain ethical authenticity through transcending the self, and to establish a unified identity. They use silence and taciturnity to establish a knowing bad faith which yields to nostalgia for those moments when they feel aligned with their self-representations. This indicates, however, that the poets are determined by history as well as by their environments. In turn, they can never be fully satisfied until they attempt to re-appropriate their subjective individuality. This philosophical dilemma is carried by the conceptual and narrative structures in both Shelley’s poetry and Almu’allaqât. The taciturn poetics provide readers with an approach to engage dynamically with the fact that the historicization of certain experiences can create trauma and dissatisfaction, yet also provide the opportunity to creatively re-posit present moments. The first chapter introduces the concepts of silence and taciturnity in Shelley’s poetry and Almu’allaqât and the theoretical lenses through which they are examined. Chapter two examines how the visionary poet in both Alastor and Qais ibn AlMulawaḥ’s interchanges with Nature are produced through communicative reserve. Chapter three presents the aesthetic experiences of Shelley with Mont Blanc and Labîd with Aja wa Samla mountains and how these lead both poets to immersion in historicized moments. Chapter four sheds light on how the experiences of shame by ‘Antara, Ibla, and Beatrice Cenci have been conveyed through taciturn poetics. Chapter five argues that both Shelley and Imru’ Al-Qais create transcendental identities that are aware of their bad faith. A brief conclusion summarizes my findings and indicates the direction of my future research.