The Impact of Psychological Trauma on Abdullah Baradouni’s Mind and Poetic Language

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

jabbar azarbar ¹

jahanger amiri ²

Ali Salimi ²

¹ PhD Student, Department of Arabic Language and Literature, Faculty of Literature and Human Sciences, Razi University, Kermanshah, Iran.

² Professor, Department of Arabic Language and Literature, Faculty of Literature and Human Sciences, Razi University, Kermanshah, Iran.

https://doi.org/10.22067/jall.2026.97223.1622

Abstract

Trauma is a profound psychological and emotional wound that arises from the experience of painful events and shocking incidents. The growing prevalence of such experiences has made trauma one of the defining existential conditions of modern humanity. Abdullah Al-Baradouni (1929–1999), the prominent Yemeni poet and man of letters, endured numerous painful and distressing experiences throughout his life. These experiences profoundly shaped his personality and contributed to the development of trauma within him. Adopting a descriptive-analytical method and an interdisciplinary approach combining literary studies and psychoanalysis, the present study examines the poetic corpus of Abdullah Al-Baradouni to address two fundamental questions: which life experiences played the most central role in the formation of the poet’s trauma, and how are the consequences of this psychological suffering reflected in his poetry? The findings reveal that factors such as blindness, imprisonment, the loss of loved ones, familial poverty, and childlessness all contributed significantly to the formation of trauma in Al-Baradouni’s life. These experiences manifest throughout his poetry as loneliness, despair, sorrow, confusion, and pessimism. Structural analysis further demonstrates that this wounded worldview is systematically embedded in the texture of his poetic language. The frequent use of the first-person voice, recurrent rhetorical questions, and sorrow-laden symbolism all testify to the dominance of the poet’s wounded consciousness over his poetic expression. The study concludes that Al-Baradouni’s melancholic style and distinctive mode of expression should not be regarded merely as aesthetic or literary choices; rather, they constitute an inevitable response to his profound experiences of trauma and suffering.

Keywords

contemporary poetry

interdisciplinary studies

trauma

Abdullah Baradouni

Subjects

• Linguistics

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