الطباق بين القدماء والمعاصرين

Abstract

In this study, the author addresses the antithesis among past and contemporary scholars using a number of past and contemporary rhetoric references. The author starts defining Antithesis while highlighting a very basic aspect that the past references did not relate to: the Antithesis has to be in one semantic field, within which the two opposites differ semantically.

The author then relates to the various Antithesis categories that are found in the late sixth Hijri century and afterwards, indicating that these rhetoric books differ from the old books that were written before. He mentions that the old books were almost devoid of these categories.

The researcher notes that most contemporary rhetorical studies followed the late rhetoric books, using the same categories and adding new ones.

Then, the researcher elaborates on four categories that were mentioned in the late rhetoric books: verbal Antithesis, moral Antithesis, Supplement Antithesis, and deluding Antithesis.

This is followed by a detailed description of two new categories added by contemporary scholars: semantic-based categories and linguistic-based categories. The semantic-based categories have the following sub-categories: contradiction, contrast, addition, difference. The linguistic-based categories have five subcategories:  sharp contrast, gradient contrast, reverse contrast, directional contrast and vertical contrast.

The researcher proposes four categories and argues that they are clear and sufficient: affirmative Antithesis, negative Antithesis, moral Antithesis and deluding Antithesis.

To conclude, the researcher reviews a few evaluative approaches that relate to  Antithesis as a rhetorical type. He then sums up and argues that giving general evaluations regarding any  rhetorical type is not acceptable. Each type should be evaluated within the context it occurs, while analyzing it's moral and artistic function.