The Reception of Critical Terms by Muslim Philosophers 'Tragedy and Comedy in our Heritage as Models'

Abstract

Issues frequently arise regarding the interaction of Arab literary criticism with a foreign expatriate one. This research deals with receiving of Aristotle's arguments in our philosophical heritage, so it monitors the interaction of Muslim philosophers with this expatriate criticism, specifically in two terms: tragedy and comedy. these two terms are traced in Aristotle's Poetics as it is translated today from the Greek directly, and between the interaction of Muslim philosophers with the Arabic translation at the time of the book. It has been, primarily, found that there was a misunderstanding of the book with the translator, which resulted in a false reception in Aristotle's statements by the translator. we have two translations: the first, the old, was made by Matta Bin Yunus Alqanae (328 d.), the one with which Muslim philosophers reacted to the Greek heritage. The second, recent, is the new translations of the book. It is worth mentioning that there are differences in the concept of the two terms: tragedy and comedy, in the Greek frame of reference, and between the shift of their concept in the reception circle in the Arab philosophical incubator, and hence, the interaction of Muslim philosophers with the both of them. and this was monitored with Al-Farabi, Ibn Sina and Ibn Rushd, and they were chosen, because they were the clearest in their approach to the two terms, they have dealt with the Arabic poetry based on their understanding of Aristotle's arguments through the mediator which is the translation of Matta bin Yunus of the book on Syriac language. By tracing and checking we stand on the effort made by Muslim philosophers, to find out the laws of the Arabic poetry based on Aristotle’s arguments. Yet, the main problem that the research deals with remains related to the conceptual convergence of the terms “tragedy and comedy as genres” with Arabic poetry. However, here we have an understanding of terms that is produced in Arabic, and even applications on poetry texts. Today, we can also reposition the two terms within their right contex