Poetry and Architecture: A Double Imitation in the Sīniyyah of Ahmad Shawqī.

This study explores the Sīniyyah of Ahmad Shawqī (1868-1932) in relation to that of al-Buhturī, focusing on the meaning of architecture. His Sīniyyah poem, entitled "The Journey to al-Andalus," is well-known as a mu˛āradah (imitation) of the Sīniyyah by an eminent ˛Abbāsid poet, al-Buhturī (821-897 C.E.). Shawqī's Sīniyyah can be seen as a double imitation of poem and architecture. On the one hand, Shawqī's work is a literary imitation of a neo-classical poet imitating a classical poet. On the other hand, it is a description/imitation of Andalusian architecture. His act attempts to reconstruct a lost past, one through the verbal imitation/emulation of a verbal art work/monument, the other through the verbal description of plastic/architectural monuments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]