Manifestations of Arabic Linguistic Style: Between the Explanation of Metaphor in Al-Zamakhshari's Dictionary Asas Al-Balagha and the English Commentary in Edward William Lane's Dictionary Madd Al-Qamous
Prof. Dr. Qassem Ben Al-Tayeb compares two monumental approaches to Arabic lexical meaning: Al-Zamakhshari's treatment of literal and figurative expression in Asas Al-Balagha and Edward William Lane's English commentary in Madd Al-Qamous. Across historical and analytical chapters, the study traces how metaphor, rhetorical evidence, and semantic classification travel between Arabic scholarship and English lexicography. It asks what is preserved, clarified, or lost when a richly figurative tradition is explained across languages. Dictionaries emerge not as warehouses of isolated words but as arguments about usage, culture, and style. The work will interest readers of rhetoric, etymology, translation, and the intellectual history of Arabic studies.
