''Waṣf'' ( ar, وصف) (literally 'attribute' or 'description'; pl. ) is an ancient style of Arabic poetry, which can be characterised as descriptive verse. The concept of was also borrowed into

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

, which developed its own rich poetic tradition in this mode.

Role in Arabic verse

was one of four kinds of poetry in which medieval Arabic poets were expected to be competent, alongside 'the boast (), the invective (), and the elegy ()'.Cole, Peter, ed. and trans., ''The Dream of the Poem: Hebrew Poetry from Muslim and Christian Spain, 950–1492'' (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007), p. 530. Probably deriving from the descriptions of the abandoned campsite and beloved in the ancient qasida's erotic prelude, and of animals and landscape in the journey section, or , it evolved into a genre of its own in Abbasid Baghdad and later in Spain. The tradition in Arabic was highly developed, with poets often devoting entire collections to elaborate treatments of single subjects, such as hunting animals, kinds of flowers, and specific objects. ..While one might initially be inclined to take the genre of poetry lightly--since it involves "mere" description, in fact an argument could be made for seeing this genre as, in some instances, central to the poetry of the period. In love poems, each part of a lover's body is described and praised in turn, often using exotic, extravagant, or even far-fetched metaphors. The Song of Solomon is a prominent example of such a poem, and other examples can be found in

Thousand and One Nights ''One Thousand and One Nights'' ( ar, أَلْفُ لَيْلَةٍ وَلَيْلَةٌ, italic=yes, ) is a collection of Middle Eastern folk tales compiled in Arabic during the Islamic Golden Age. It is often known in English as the ''Arabian ...

. The images given in this type of poetry are not literally descriptive. Instead, they convey the delight of the lover for the beloved, where the lover finds freshness and splendor in the body as a reflected image in the world. Other varieties of include literary

riddles A riddle is a statement, question or phrase having a double or veiled meaning, put forth as a puzzle to be solved. Riddles are of two types: ''enigmas'', which are problems generally expressed in metaphorical or allegorical language that requ ...

Outside Arabic

This genre had a long history and later became a favorite of the troubadour poets and the authors of sonnets in the Elizabethan era. This renaissance literature was popularized by French authors via Italian and was called the or

blazon In heraldry and heraldic vexillology, a blazon is a formal description of a coat of arms, flag or similar emblem, from which the reader can reconstruct the appropriate image. The verb ''to blazon'' means to create such a description. The vi ...

(see Italian poet

Petrarch Francesco Petrarca (; 20 July 1304 – 18/19 July 1374), commonly anglicized as Petrarch (), was a scholar and poet of early Renaissance Italy, and one of the earliest humanists. Petrarch's rediscovery of Cicero's letters is often credited ...

). Shakespeare effectively ended this movement with his

Sonnet 130 William Shakespeare's Sonnet 130 mocks the conventions of the showy and flowery courtly sonnets in its realistic portrayal of his mistress. Synopsis Sonnet 130 satirizes the concept of ideal beauty that was a convention of literature and art in ...

which satirized the form. For instance, the first line in that satire reads, "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun."Mabillard, Amanda
Analysis of Shakespeare's Sonnet 130
including sonnet text and modern translation. Shakespeare Online. 2000. (7/Oct/2011).

References

* Knuth, Donald E. (1990). 3:16 Bible Texts Illuminated. A.R. Editions, Inc. . Arabic and Central Asian poetics Arabic poetry forms Arab culture Literary genres Arabic poetry {{poetry-stub