Classical Arabic Literature: A Library of Arabic Literature Anthology

Further Reading

452 452 Further Reading Reference works Meisami, Julie Scott and Paul Starkey, ed. Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature. London : Routledge, 1998. Contains entries on poets, writers, genres, forms, and many other topics. The following are particularly relevant: ʿAbbāsids; adab; ancients and moderns ; anthologies, medieval; artistic prose; didactic literature; encyclopedias , medieval; epigram; fables; fakhr; fiction, medieval; genres, poetic; ghazal; hazl; hijāʾ; ḥikma; historical literature; humour; Jāhiliyya; khamriyya ; literary criticism, medieval; madīḥ, madḥ; Mamlūks; maqāma; Mirrors for Princes; muḥdathūn, “the moderns”; mujūn; muwashshaḥ; oral composition ; Persian literature, relations with Arabic; poetry vs. prose; popular literature ; prose, non-fiction, medieval; prosody (ʿarūḍ); qaṣīda; qiṭʿa; rajaz; religious poetry; rhetoric and poetics; rhetorical figures; rithāʾ; sajʿ; satire, medieval; Shuʿūbiyya; Spain; story-telling; Ṣūfī literature, poetry; Ṣūfī literature , prose; theatre and drama, medieval; travel literature; Umayyads; waṣf; zajal; zuhdiyya. The Encyclopaedia of Islam, New [= second] Edition. Leiden: Brill, 1960–2009. A third edition began to appear in 2007 in print and online. Many relevant entries as in the preceding title, often more detailed. Note the divergent transliteration used: dj for j and ḳ for q (the third edition has abandoned this). Encyclopædia Iranica. London and New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1982–, also online. In progress; with many relevant entries because the numerous Arabic poets and writers of Persian descent are incorporated. One should be aware of the transliteration system, with “Ebn” for Ibn (and o for u, i for ī, u for ū, ż for ḍ, etc.). 453 453 453 453 Further Reading Cooperson, Michael and Shawkat M. Toorawa, ed. Arabic Literary Culture, 500– 925. Dictionary of Literary Biography, vol. 311. Detroit: Thomson Gale, 2005. Contains chapters on the following poets and authors included in this anthology : Abū al-ʿAtāhiyah, Abū Nuwās, Bashshār ibn Burd, al-Buḥturī, Dhū al-Rummah, Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ, al-Jāḥiẓ, Jarīr, al-Khansāʾ, ʿUmar ibn Abī Rabīʿah. Lowry, Joseph E. and Devin J. Stewart, ed. Essays in Arabic Literary Biography, 1350–1850. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2009, pp. 251–62. (Mîzân: Studien zur Literatur in der islamischen Welt, Bd. 17: Essays in Arabic Literary Biography, 2). Contains chapters on Jamāl al-Dīn Ibn Nubātah and al-Shirbīnī, represented in this anthology. The Cambridge History of Arabic Literature. A series of six multi-authored volumes, five of which deal with the pre-modern period. The contributions are of varying quality. The volumes are: Beeston, A.F.L., T.M. Johnstone, R.B. Serjeant, and G.R. Smith, ed. Arabic Literature to the End of the Umayyad Period. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983. Ashtiany, Julia, T.M. Johnstone, J.D. Latham, and R.B. Serjeant, ed. ʿAbbasid Belles Lettres. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. Young, M.J.L., J.D. Latham, and R.B. Serjeant, ed. Religion, Learning and Science in the ‘Abbasid Period. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. Menocal, María Rosa, Raymond P. Scheindlin, and Michael Sells, ed. The Literature of Al-Andalus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Allen, Roger and D.S. Richards, ed. Arabic Literature in the Post-Classical Period. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. 454 454 454 454 Further Reading Two recent single-volume surveys of Arabic literature in all its periods Allen, Roger. The Arabic Literary Heritage: The Development of its Genres and Criticism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998; a shortened version appeared as An Introduction to Arabic Literature, Cambridge, 2000. Cachia, Pierre. Arabic Literature: An Overview. London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2002. Other anthologies with English translations General: Nicholson, Reynold A. Translations of Eastern Poetry and Prose. Cambridge: The University Press, 1922, reprinted with introduction by C.E. Bosworth. London: Curzon, 1987. Literary translations from classical Arabic and Persian prose and poetry. Howarth, Herbert and Ibrahim Shukrallah. Images from the Arab World. London: The Pilot Press, 1944. Prose and poetry (verse translations), in no apparent order; mostly classical with some modern authors; no annotation. Irwin, Robert. Nights and Horses and the Desert: An Anthology of Classical Arabic Literature. London: Penguin, 1999. Reprinted as The Penguin Anthology of Classical Arabic Literature, London: Penguin, 2006. A good selection of translations by many different translators, all previously published (but with diacritical signs expurgated), with the compiler’s commentary and linking passages, printed in a larger font size than the texts themselves, a priority which the present anthology reverses. Poetry: Arberry, A.J. Arabic Poetry: A Primer for Students. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965. Contains...