Greek Thought, Modern Arabic Culture: Classical Receptions since the Nahḍa

2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 291-315 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter E. Pormann
Keyword(s):  
Arab World ◽  
Classical Literature ◽  
Literary Genres ◽  
Short Account ◽  
Greek Thought ◽  
Classical Studies ◽  
Textual History ◽  
Lyrical Poetry ◽  
History Of ◽  
Modern Arabic

This article surveys the growing, yet largely understudied field of classical receptions in the modern Arab world, with a specific focus on Egypt and the Levant. After giving a short account of the state of the field and reviewing a small number of previous studies, the article discusses how classical studies as a discipline fared in Egypt; and how this discipline informed modern debates about religous identity, and notably views on the textual history of the Qurʾān. It then turns to three literary genres, epic poetry, drama, and lyrical poetry, and explores the reception of classical literature and myth in each of them. It concludes with an appeal to study this reception phenomenon on a much broader scale.

Form and History in Modern Arabic Poetics

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Huda Fakhreddine
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Arab World ◽  
Prose Poem ◽  
Poetic Tradition ◽  
Literary Traditions ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Rich ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Fundamental Forces ◽  
Modern Arabic

Modern Arabic poetic forms developed in conversation with the rich Arabic poetic tradition, on one hand, and the Western literary traditions, primarily English and French, on the other. In light of the drastic social and political changes that swept the Arab world in the first half of the 20th century, Western influences often appear in the scholarship on the period to be more prevalent and operative in the rise of the modernist movement. Nevertheless, one of the fundamental forces that drove the movement from its early phases is its urgent preoccupation with the Arabic poetic heritage and its investment in forging a new relationship with the literary past. The history of poetic forms in the first half of the 20th century reveals much about the dynamics between margin and center, old and new, commitment and escapism, autochthonous and outside imperatives. Arabic poetry in the 20th century reflects the political and social upheavals in Arab life. The poetic forms which emerged between the late 1940s and early 1960s presented themselves as aesthetically and ideologically revolutionary. The modernist poets were committed to a project of change in the poem and beyond. Developments from the qas̩īdah of the late 19th century to the prose poem of the 1960s and the notion of writing (kitābah) after that suggest an increased loosening or abandoning of formal restrictions. However, the contending poetic proposals, from the most formal to the most experimental, all continue to coexist in the Arabic poetic landscape in the 21st century. The tensions and negotiations between them are what often lead to the most creative poetic breakthroughs.

Stranger Fictions

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca C. Johnson
Keyword(s):  
World Literature ◽  
Arab World ◽  
Central Place ◽  
Arabic Literature ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Reading Practices ◽  
Global Circulation ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
History Of ◽  
Modern Arabic

Zaynab, first published in 1913, is widely cited as the first Arabic novel, yet the previous eight decades saw hundreds of novels translated into Arabic from English and French. This vast literary corpus influenced generations of Arab writers but has, until now, been considered a curious footnote in the genre's history. Incorporating these works into the history of the Arabic novel, this book offers a transformative new account of modern Arabic literature, world literature, and the novel. This book rewrites the history of the global circulation of the novel by moving Arabic literature from the margins of comparative literature to its center. Considering the wide range of nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century translation practices, the book argues that Arabic translators did far more than copy European works; they authored new versions of them, producing sophisticated theorizations of the genre. These translations and the reading practices they precipitated form the conceptual and practical foundations of Arab literary modernity, necessitating an overhaul of our notions of translation, cultural exchange, and the global. The book shows how translators theorized the Arab world not as Europe's periphery but as an alternative center in a globalized network. It affirms the central place of (mis)translation in both the history of the novel in Arabic and the novel as a transnational form itself.

Wang Guowei and the Establishment of Chinese Drama in the Modern Canon of Classical Literature

T oung Pao ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 96 (1) ◽  
pp. 165-201
Author(s):  
Regina Llamas
Keyword(s):  
Yuan Dynasty ◽  
Literary Genre ◽  
Classical Literature ◽  
Literary Value ◽  
Literary Genres ◽  
Critical History ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Yuan Dynasty ◽  
Universal Standard

AbstractThis essay examines the process by which Wang Guowei placed Chinese dramatic history into the modern Chinese literary canon. It explores how Wang formed his ideas on literature, drawing on Western aesthetics to explain, through the notions of leisure and play, the impetus for art creation, and on the Chinese notions of the genesis of literature to explain the psychology of literary creation. In order to establish the literary value of Chinese drama, Wang applied these ideas to the first playwrights of the Yuan dynasty, arguing that theirs was a literature created under the right aesthetic and creative circumstances, and that it embodied the value of "naturalness" which he considered a universal standard for good literature. By producing a scholarly critical history of the origins and nature of Chinese drama, Wang placed drama on a par with other literary genres of past dynasties, thus giving it a renewed status and creating at the same time a new discipline of research. Drama had now become an established literary genre.

The transformation of reality and the Arabic novel's aesthetic response

1994 ◽  
Vol 57 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-112 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sabry Hafez
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Context ◽  
Social Role ◽  
Arab World ◽  
Arabic Literature ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Aesthetic Response ◽  
Literary Genres ◽  
The Social ◽  
Rapid Pace ◽  
Modern Arabic

The rapid pace of the change sweeping through the Arab world over the last few decades has profoundly affected both its various cultural products and its writers' perception of their national identity, social role and the nature of literature. The aim of this paper1 is to discuss the major changes in the sociopolitical reality of the Arab world, the cultural frame of reference and the responses of one of the major literary genres in modern Arabic literature: the novel. It is assumed here that there is a vital interaction between the novel and its socio-cultural context, in that novels encode within their very structure various elements of the social reality in which they appear and within whose constraints they aspire to play a role. Their generation of meaning is enmeshed in a variety of cultural, psychological and social processes, and their reception therefore brings into operation an array of experiences necessary for the interpretive act.

Rediscovering the Islamic Classics

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahmed El Shamsy
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Arab World ◽  
Hot Spot ◽  
Arabic Literature ◽  
Classical Literature ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Religious Reform ◽  
Islamic Thought ◽  
History Of

Islamic book culture dates back to late antiquity, when Muslim scholars began to write down their doctrines on parchment, papyrus, and paper and then to compose increasingly elaborate analyses of, and commentaries on, these ideas. Movable type was adopted in the Middle East only in the early nineteenth century, and it wasn't until the second half of the century that the first works of classical Islamic religious scholarship were printed there. But from that moment on, as this book reveals, the technology of print transformed Islamic scholarship and Arabic literature. The book tells the story of how a small group of editors and intellectuals brought forgotten works of Islamic literature into print and defined what became the classical canon of Islamic thought. Through the lens of the literary culture of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Arab cities—especially Cairo, a hot spot of the nascent publishing business—the book explores the contributions of these individuals, who included some of the most important thinkers of the time. Through their efforts to find and publish classical literature, the book shows, many nearly lost works were recovered, disseminated, and harnessed for agendas of linguistic, ethical, and religious reform. The book is an examination of the central role printing and its advocates played in the intellectual history of the modern Arab world.

Reconsidering Qur'anic Genre

2018 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 19-46
Author(s):  
Adam Flowers
Keyword(s):  
Structural Analysis ◽  
Literary Analysis ◽  
Genre Studies ◽  
Literary Genres ◽  
Textual History ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Interpretative Framework

The Qur'an's employment of diverse modes of discourse is, perhaps, the text's defining literary feature. These discourses, ranging from apocalyptic, to narrative, to legal, have long been observed by Western scholars. Genre studies of the Qur'an, however, have largely stagnated, and little progress has been made beyond cursory classifications. This stagnation is particularly stunting to the study of the textual history of the Qur'an, as vital questions concerning the development of individual genres and the relationship between Qur'anic genre and the unit of the sura remain unanswered. This article marks a first attempt at formulating a literary framework for approaching Qur'anic genre. It will synthesise existing conceptions of Qur'anic genre into a common interpretative framework: individual Qur'anic genres exist as thematically and syntactically demarcated literary units. The article will then propose a novel, literary approach that utilises a comparative thematic and syntactic structural analysis of the Qur'an text to uncover the original, communicated pieces of Qur'anic revelation from the Prophet to an audience in time, or ‘Qur'anic utterances'. This literary analysis is applied to Sūrat Āl ʿImrān and will demonstrate that it is constructed of 34 individual utterances and nine distinct literary genres.

Modern Arabic Literature

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reuven Snir
Keyword(s):  
Literary History ◽  
Arabic Literature ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Literary Genres ◽  
History Of ◽  
Adults And Children ◽  
Literary Systems ◽  
Diachronic Development ◽  
Second Category ◽  
Modern Arabic

This book provides a comprehensive theoretical framework for the study of the literary history of the diverse production of contemporary Arabic literary texts and the reasons for their canonization. Based on the achievements of historical poetics, the book offers flexible, transparent, and unbiased tools for understanding these texts and their contexts. The aim is to enhance understanding of Arabic literature, throw light on areas of literary production that traditionally have been neglected, and stimulate others to take up the challenge of mapping out and exploring them. Three categories are used: The first is the investigation of the literary dynamics in synchronic cross-section ― potential inventories of canonized and non-canonized texts in both the standard language, fuṣḥā, and the vernacular, ‘āmmiyya, in three subsystems: texts for adults, children’s literature, and translated texts for adults and children. The internal and external interrelations and interactions between the various subsystems need to be studied if we wish to arrive at a comprehensive understanding of Arabic literature. The second category consists of the study of the historical outlines of the literary system’s diachronic development, that is, the interactions with other extra-literary systems that have determined the historical course of Arabic literature since the nineteenth century. The third category is intended to concentrate on the historical diachronic development that each genre underwent and on the relationships between the various genres. Since literary genres do not emerge in a vacuum, the issue of generic development cannot be confined to certain time spans; emphasis must be laid on the relationship between modern literature and classical and postclassical literature.

scholarly journals Poetic Structure and Arts of Prose in Modern Arabic Literature

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 208-256
Author(s):  
Zakira Jahantab
Keyword(s):  
Arab World ◽  
Literary Text ◽  
Poetic Structure ◽  
Critical Theories ◽  
The Arts ◽  
History Of ◽  
Entire History ◽  
Modern Arabic ◽  
First Time ◽  
Modern Era

الأدب هو شكلٌ من أشكال التعبير عن مشاعر الإنسان وعواطفه، وهو أسلوبٌ من الأساليب التي يستخدمُها الإنسان لإفراغ هواجسِه وخواطره وعرض أفكاره بمساحة يخلقُها لنفسه من الحروف، ويُعرَفُ الأدب في كلِّ لغة من لغات الأرض بأنّه مجموعة النصوص التي كتبها الأدباء والشعراء حول العالم بهذه اللغة، وتختلف فنون الأدب في كلِّ اللغات؛ فمن الأدباء من يعبّر عن أفكاره ومشاعره شِعرًا، ومنهم من يعبّر عن ذلك نثرًا، وللنثر أنواعٌ أيضًا، وهذا التنوّع في هذه الفنون قائمٌ على الأدوات التي يمتلكها كلُّ كاتب، وعلى الميول الأدبيّة الخاصّة به، كما اتخذ الأدب في العصر الحديث في العالم العربي منحى جديدًا بدخول مجموعة من الفنون الأدبية العربية الجديدة على الأدب، لم تكن هذه الفنون معروفة من قبل أو سائدة عند الأدباء العرب، دخل الفنّ المسرحي النثري والشعري لأول مرة في تاريخ الأدب العربي كلِّه، فقد تطورت الدراسات النقدية في العصر الحديث و اكتشف النقاد عوالمَ أخرى في النص الأدبي العربي ورصدوا تطورات النص الأدبي عبر العصور، وفصَّلوا في المعجم اللغوي والدلالي في كلِّ نص أدبي، فمنحوا النقد مساحات إضافية ونظريّات نقدية جديدة لم تكن معروفة ومتداولة في عصور الأدب السابقة، وهذا المقال سيسلِّط الضوء على الأدب في العصر الحديث بفنونِه المختلفة. الكلمات المفاتيح: الأدب، العصر الحديث، مشاعر، نثرًا، الفنّ الشعري، ونظريّات نقدية. Abstract Literature is a form of expression of human feelings and emotions, and it is one of the methods that a person uses to express thoughts and present his ideas with a space that he creates for himself  from words, and literature is known in every language of the earth as the set of texts written by writers and poets around the world in the language, and the arts of literature differ in all languages; Some writers express his thoughts and feelings in poetry, and some express it in prose, and prose has types as well, and this diversity of art is based on the tools and on his own literary tendencies that each writer possesses, and literature in the modern era in the Arab world has taken a new turn with the recognization of new Arab literary arts to literature, these arts were not known before or prevalent among Arab writers. Theatrical prose and poetic art recognized for the first time in the entire history of Arab literature. The Studies of Criticism have developed in the modern era and critics discovered other worlds in the Arabic literary text and monitored the developments of the literary text through the ages and explained the linguistic and semantic lexicon in every literary text. These studies have given criticism additional areas and new critical theories that were not known and circulated in previous literary eras, and this article will highlight on literature in the modern era with its various arts. Keywords: Literature, modern era, emotions, prose, poetic art, critical theories.

Poetic Structure and Arts of Prose in Modern Arabic Literature

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (Special Issue) ◽  
pp. 208-256
Author(s):  
Zakira Jahantab
Keyword(s):  
Arab World ◽  
Literary Text ◽  
Poetic Structure ◽  
Critical Theories ◽  
The Arts ◽  
History Of ◽  
Entire History ◽  
Modern Arabic ◽  
First Time ◽  
Modern Era

Literature is a form of expression of human feelings and emotions, and it is one of the methods that a person uses to express thoughts and present his ideas with a space that he creates for himself from words, and literature is known in every language of the earth as the set of texts written by writers and poets around the world in the language, and the arts of literature differ in all languages; Some writers express his thoughts and feelings in poetry, and some express it in prose, and prose has types as well, and this diversity of art is based on the tools and on his own literary tendencies that each writer possesses, and literature in the modern era in the Arab world has taken a new turn with the recognization of new Arab literary arts to literature, these arts were not known before or prevalent among Arab writers. Theatrical prose and poetic art recognized for the first time in the entire history of Arab literature. The Studies of Criticism have developed in the modern era and critics discovered other worlds in the Arabic literary text and monitored the developments of the literary text through the ages and explained the linguistic and semantic lexicon in every literary text. These studies have given criticism additional areas and new critical theories that were not known and circulated in previous literary eras, and this article will highlight on literature in the modern era with its various arts.

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