“Two Hundred Years” A Critical Study in the Cognitive Feasibility of the Argumentation about Lamiyyat al- ‘Arab

The authenticity of Lamiyyat al-Arab is one of the most problematic issues relating to the historiography of ancient Arabic poetry. Controversy over it began nearly two centuries ago, and it is still going on between the advocates and the deniers of its authenticity. Through a critical- analytical study, the article reads the efforts of the Orientalists and Arab scholars that seeks to reveal their cognitive feasibility. The article reviews the arguments that each party relied on to show that they were refutable in themselves because they lack objectivity and logicality, in addition to lacking of awareness of the historical and cultural conditions that surrounded what is known as the era of codification. In order to break the vicious circle of this sterile argumentation, the article attempts to establish a different perspective for the study of the poem, which is to neglect the historical methodology and the problems it raises without being able to solve them, in favor of methods that are more useful in revealing the cultural, aesthetic and human values of the poem.