Understanding similarities with regard to the common feature of comparison in classical Arabic stylistic

Abstract

Comparison is given great attention in Arabic stylistics. This is thanks to the fact that metaphor is based on comparison. An important place in analysing comparison belongs to understanding the similarity and the common feature of this comparison. Arabic authors have made clear that comparison is not done on the basis of reciprocal interaction of the correlates addressed in the common feature of comparison, i.e. that similarity is not simply reflected in the overlapping of the identical number of schemes of the one and the other constituents of the comparison.

A common feature of comparison is understood as something in which the compared correlates participate jointly. The comparison’s common feature is always in the state of pre-existence. It exists as a read-into possibility waiting to be actualized.