نظر ابن سيده إلى شعر المتنبي على أنه قضية تجدرُ دراستها وحلّ مشكلاتها، فاختار أبياتاً من قصائده ورتّبها بحسب تسلسلها التاريخي . فبدأ بالشعر الذي قاله المتنبي في صباه ،وأوّل ما أختاره منه مطلع قصيدته النّونية وختم شرحه بالمختار من قصيدته الكافية، وهي ، وهي آخر شعر قاله وسُمع منه . وعلى الرغم من خلو كتابه " شرح مشكل شعر المتنبي" من مقدمة يمكن من خلالها الاطلاع على ما كان في متناوله من المؤلفات التي تقدّمته ، فقد عثرنا في تضاعيفه على جملة من العبارات يُستفاد منها اطلاعه على آثار الشرّاح السّابقين عليه من قبيل قوله :" وبعض الناس يقول " ،"وذهب بعضهم "، " وذهب قوم " ،"لا على ما ذهب إليه أكثر مفسِّري هذا الشعر ".وخرج عن هؤلاء أبو الفتح ابن جني الذي حظي ، على ما يبدو باحترام ابن سيده وتقديره، على نحو ما سنعرض له في الموازنة التالية بين صنيع ابن سيده في" شرح مشكل شعر المتنبي" وبين "الفتح الوهبي على مشكلات المتنبي" لابن جني، وهو ما تسعى الدراسة الموالية إلى تحقيقه من منطلق ما حقّقه ابن سيده من باب الإضافة النوعية واللّمسة الذّاتية.

Ibn Sidah has considered the poetry by El- Moutanabī as one of the matters that should be studied and so resolved. He did choose some poems from his verses and classified them according to their historical chronology. He started with the poetry that El- Moutanabī stated when he was still young. Thus, he dealt with some poems from his “Nounia” and ended with his explanation to some chosen poems from the “Kafia” that was his last one in poetry. In spite of the fact that there is no introduction in his book “The explanation of the problems of the poetry by El- Moutanabī”, we did come across some of his sources and those of who preceded him and that through some fruitful expressions that show how he did take profit from the previous explicators. Some useful expressions: he said, “Some people said”, “some of them went”, “Some people went”. Not the same way most of the explicators did, except for Ibn Jinnī who was greatly respected by Ibn Sidah in: “Explaining the Moutanabī’s Poetry” and “The ideal opening of the problematic of El- Moutanabī” this what this given study is trying to realize starting from what has been realized by Ibn Sidah taking into account his qualified addition thanks to his own contribution.