The Significance of Repetition in Al-Sayyab's "Rain Song" and Its Impact on the Poem's Structure

Abstract

Badr Shakir al-Sayyab is considered one of the most prominent pioneers of modern Arabic free verse (taf'ila poetry). He and his contemporaries rebelled against the traditional classical form (columnar poetry) and innovated the poem’s structure by abandoning the unified rhyme. In 1947, the poet published "Was it Love?", marking his name among the innovators of Arabic poetry alongside Nazik al-Mala'ika, who published her poem "Cholera" in the same year. Some critics consider these two poems as the true beginning of the free verse movement. I was intrigued by the stylistic phenomenon of repetition in his masterpiece "Rain Song"; thus, I sought to explore its underlying causes through a modest study titled: "The Significance of Repetition in Al-Sayyab's 'Rain Song' and Its Impact on the Poem's Structure." The second motivation for choosing this topic was to enrich the Arabic library. The importance of repetition in "Rain Song" is manifested in emphasizing, clarifying, and strengthening the meaning, and it inherently reflects the poet’s psychological state. Through the repetition of specific terms, al-Sayyab managed to project his sorrow as sighs emanating from the depths of his soul. Furthermore, repetition reveals the vast space occupied by the word "rain" within the text's architecture, as this word dominates the entire poem. The term "rain" serves as a recurring symbol to create a psychological rhythm that blends life and death, prosperity and destruction, and good and evil—expressing both a hope for renewal and the grief of reality. The poem is structured through recurring refrains ("Rain... Rain... Rain"), which divide it into segments symbolizing the transformations of rain between blessing and curse. This study adopts a descriptive-analytical approach and is divided into two sections: the first provides a brief overview of the poet and the emergence of free verse, and the second examines the significance of repetition in "Rain Song" and its impact on the poem’s structure. These sections are followed by a conclusion summarizing the research findings. Finally, I ask Almighty God for success and guidance.