The Duality of Old Age and Youth in Ayman Al-Atoum's Poetry: A Rhetorical and Psychological Study of the Existential Conflict

This study examines the duality of youth and gray hair in Ayman Al-Atoum's poetry, describing it as an artistic and aesthetic tool that expresses a rich human experience that reflects the psychological conflict between the vitality of the past and the burden of the present. The study aims to reveal how Al-Atoum employs this duality in constructing his poetic vision, manifesting it in evoking national nostalgia, internalizing feelings of loss, and clinging to roots. The study relies on psychoanalytic and rhetorical approaches to uncover the rhetorical images and symbolic meanings that weave this tension between youth, as a time of joy, and gray hair, as a time of wisdom and defeat. The study concludes that Al-Atoum excels in employing this duality, such that it has become the axis for constructing his modern poetic experience, which enhances his presence in the contemporary Arabic poetry scene and makes his experience a mirror of emotional reactions in which the individual self intersects with collective concern.