The study of adab on its own terms opens the door to a new sense of what modern adab-as-literature means while simultaneously exposing the entanglement of Arabic literature with Western critical theory. The starting point of my inquiry, the question of what adab “is,” is indebted to philology—a prime example of an interrogative framework favored not only by theorists associated with the West (e.g. Nietzsche; Nallini; Edward Said), but also as a substantive mode of textual hermeneutics within the Arab rhetorical and literary traditions. One only has to look to Lis?n al-‘arab or consider al-Shidyaq’s Al-saq ‘ala al-saq to see how the careful study of words has provided a major for critical thought taking place inside and alongside literature. The central thrust of my argument is that adab contains within itself its own impetus towards excess, towards that which disrupts the parameters of adab as refined, mannerly, educated, and sociable poeticity and literariness. An unorderly adab, if you will; an uncivil adab at odds with adab’s pivotal drive towards a framework and language for civility. However, this attempt to analyze adab on its own terms calls to the vocabulary of Derrida, adab as play or supplement, returning to the ambit of Western theory. Meanwhile, forays into describing and theorizing this inclination, attitude, or excess via contemporary Arab criticism lead to Adonis’ concept of modernity as innovation and resistance to convention. The problem with Adonis, however, is how easily his theoretical trajectory comes to reflect a teleological argument concerning the liberating force of secularism, echoing one of the main narratives of the nah?a: modernity as liberation from the stifling bonds of tradition. How, then, do we liberate adab in theory? If adab contains within itself this liberatory impulse, how can we theorize this force or map its poetics without that liberation turning to an indebtedness to Western epistemology? Instead of seeing these theoretical byways as indicative of adab’s colonization by theory, I hold that adab necessarily disrupts attempts to domesticate it. I engage Derrida’s terminology insofar as it speaks to the self-liberating dynamics accessed through a close engagement with the poetics of adab. My talk examines philology as a resource against the Eurocentric thrust of theory, insisting on returning to Arabic literature’s historical and rhetorical traditions. These returns provide a critical vocabulary for theory and poetics that allows us to engage Western critical frameworks from a position of comparison.