ABSTRACT
Human being learns to the extent that they can, getting hold of through experience in social intercourse among their kind. The heavy attack launched by the great man of letters, Ab ayyn al-Tawd, on al-ib following their unsuccessful relationship is well known in Arabic literary history. In both medieval and modern times, however, al-Tawd's portrayal was deemed highly biased, hence presenting a problem for biographers and critics. The apparently paradoxical phenomenon of attraction by an elite person to the low and dirty calls for a wider analytic perspective, especially since it is evident in different times and places. The sociologist Norbert Elias described the meaning of value for the courtier, and its possible appreciation or depreciation, based on one's performance in the demanding arena of the court: The court is a kind of stock exchange; as in every good society, an estimate of the value of each individual is continuously being formed.
