Applying the Parallelism Approach to the Experience of Aging in the Arabic Andalusian and Spanish Poetry

This paper conducts a comparison between the image of aging in works of Arabic Andalusian literature and models from Spanish literature by adopting the approach of parallelism, as identified in the American school in the field of comparative literature. Since there are no clear historical links between the two that might indicate the civilizational-literary influence and impact, parallelism as a method is implemented throughout the study. The framework of the image of aging along with its all artistic and literary manifestations remains the common fiber between them. The Poetic models targeted in this paper are considered fertile ground for unveiling similarities and differences relevant to the imagery of aging. By analyzing the extracts qualitatively from Andalusian and Spanish poetries, the study addresses the existential dilemma of aging in poetic expression highlighting the notion of mortality aesthetically, culturally, and imaginatively via poetic representation and symbolism. Two groups of extracts are addressed belonging to two groups of poets in which a pair from Arabic and Spanish literature respectively is categorized based on form of parallelism. The pairs of poets are given as follows: Bendetti with Ibn Zuhr, José Martí with Al-Ghazal, León with Ibn Kafaja, and Rosalía de Castro with Ibn Arabi. These pairs are classified based on the most prevalent element of intertextuality within each pair including imagery, style, representation, theme, or symbolism.