Virgin Love in the Perspective of Genetic Structuralism: A Reading of Taher Labib Jedidi’s Critical Experience

Abstract

This research paper seeks to examine a number of ideas and conceptions presented by the Tunisian critic Taher Labib Jedidi in his book The Sociology of Arabic Love Poetry: The Udhri Poetry as a Model. This work has left a significant mark on the history of modern and contemporary Arab literary criticism through its investigation into the historical layers of Arab heritage and its challenge to one of the established assumptions in the collective consciousness of Arab criticism. In a serious attempt to reconsider the phenomenon of Udhri love poetry and discuss its methodological and critical foundations, this study places the researcher's perspective under analytical scrutiny in order to assess the validity of the premises upon which his argument is based, within the framework of what is known as metacriticism (criticism of criticism).