The Rhetoric of Hudhali Wine Poetry

The aim of this article is to examine which rhetorical techniques were used by the Hudhali poets to describe the element of wine and how these techniques were used. The article covers all the wine verses mentioned by the Hudhalis. The statistical analysis shows that in the present corpus there is more weight to the rhetorical devices related to the sense in comparison to those related to the sound. The most popular rhetorical techniques related to the sense are: metonymy (40% of the total techniques used in the corpus); then simile (10%) and intellectual trope (9%). The intellectual trope is used as a means to present figuratively the wine as a noble woman. The techniques most often related to the sound are part-alliteration (16%), then repetition and grammatical endings (6% for each). The article suggests the need to study the rhetorical figures in as many themes as possible in classical Arabic poetry.