Fouad AlKhatib’s Poetry in the Saudi Era: Between Historical Moment and Poetical Moment

The research introduces Fouad Al-Khatib and his later poetry during his Saudi era. It clarifies what is meant by “historical moment”, “poetical moment” and “the aesthetic moment” through studying the relationship between these moments in the Saudi poetry of Fouad Al-Khatib to determine how each of them affect the other. A preliminary thematic classification of Al-Khatib’s Saudi poems is provided to show the aesthetic effects of these moments in the artistic construction of the poem; since the idea of the research is based on the collaboration of history and poetry, or let us say: history and art, it looks at this part of the poetry assuming its validity to represent a time period and a spatial extent. “Place” is a highly regarded component of Fouad Al-Khatib’s poetry which deserves to be considered carefully, to understand its impact on the artistic construction of the poem. Indeed, it give a deserved attention to the study of Arabic poetry in the Arabian Peninsula, past and present. Because the place - any place - is fixed, even if its meaning changes, or its form changes; while time, on the other hand, is variable, so it is made dependent on space, because the dimensions of space are multiple, and time has one dimension. In order to reach a relevant result, we raise a number of questions: Did the historical theme present in Al-Khatib’s Saudi poetry refer to history or to poetry? Or mixes them? Is it possible for Al-Khatib’s Saudi poetry to be classified objectively in a way that reveals its merits? How does the language of spatial relations create concepts of place in his poetry? How did he create an imagined existence? How time and space were combined in his poetry to express his aesthetics through a specific poem? The research methodology is based on tracking and investigating the Saudi poetry of Fouad Al-Khatib only. The analytical textual approach based on the artistic vision is considered the most useful in conducting research. To achieve our goals of revealing the aesthetic effects. It has been found that the effectiveness of the historical moment and the poetical moment appears through: relying on it, recalling it, exaggerating it, generalizing it. It was also possible to discover the netting thread of Alkatib’s Saudi poetry, which is represented by the idea of “unity and renaissance” with multiple purposes. Even if the place is real, it has an imagined existence that emerges through the language of spatial relationships. Time and place were united in forming an aesthetic image that has its own characteristics through an analytical model of Al-Khatib’s poetry.