Heliotropic Exit

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yasser Elhariry
Keyword(s):  
French Language ◽  
Arabic Literature ◽  
Critical Inquiry ◽  
Giorgio Agamben ◽  
Speaking In Tongues ◽  
History Of ◽  
Classical Arabic ◽  
Language Question ◽  
Visual Sign

Ryoko Sekiguchi’s Héliotropes is deeply informed by Giorgio Agamben and Daniel Heller-Roazen’s work on the ‘end of the poem’ and on ‘speaking in tongues,’ and so Sekiguchi perfectly unites classical Arabic literature, modernist poetics, and contemporary philosophical and critical inquiry into prosody. As the youngest of the five authors studied in Pacifist Invasions, she draws on recent innovations in critical poetic theory, and the complex linguistic, prosodic and thematic arrangements of the muwashshaḥa and the history of its scholarship. Her poetry provides a spectacular, particularly poignant exemplar for where we may begin with the language question, now that we have ended. Her solution to the inescapable problems facing French poetics represents an extreme departure: to exit altogether the Francophone literary idiom, and back toward its beginning as prise de conscience or ‘awakening,’ mediated by a Franco-Arabic tradition of unprecedented poetic innovation. Her Franco-Arabic composition deforms and unfurls a language undone. As with Saussure and Stétié’s aporetic notion of a ‘pacifist invasion’ of language, with Sekiguchi this linguistic transformation takes less the form of Francophonie’s initial surrealism- tinged linguistic destruction than a rediscovery and resurrection within and through a French language surface of classical Arabic literature and mystical Islam and Sufism. In this light, the poetics of the muwashshaḥa marks an exceptional site of transference between languages in passage, a liminal moment of transit where languages are placed at one another’s thresholds, freely interwoven into one another, becoming other languages, becoming something other than language as such, that is, characterized by a basic correspondence between visual sign and uttered sense.

Sky-Birds & Dead Trees On Two Images in Edmond Jabès

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yasser Elhariry
Keyword(s):  
French Language ◽  
Arabic Poetry ◽  
Literary Forms ◽  
Dead Trees ◽  
Translational Mode ◽  
History Of ◽  
Literary Archive ◽  
Edmond Jabes ◽  
Classical Arabic ◽  
Late Works

Chapter 2 concerns two recurrent images from Edmond Jabès’s late works, Un étranger avec, sous le bras, un livre de petit format (1989) and Le livre de l’hospitalité (1991). While Jabès is well known within French literary circles, analyses of his early Cairene work— and to an even lesser extent the formative roles of orality and aurality from his pre- Parisian period—are few and thin. I first contextualize the figure of the Egyptian poet in relation to the history of Jabès scholarship, and then build on Tengour’s translational poetics of the classical Arabic literary archive in order to unravel a different, sublimated translational mode that links many of Jabès’s later books. In his late and final works, which he composed while living in Paris, Jabès’s poetic imaginary reprises word for word the tropes of early Arabic verse. When read together and in relation to the same archival corpus, Tengour and Jabès represent contrasting translational and intertextual modes for comparative poetic and translingual compositions in French. Through his aphasic refuge in French monolingualism following his exile from Cairo, and his late re/discovery of classical Arabic poetry in Paris, Jabès’s sublimated recourse to early Arabic verse retraces and performs the history of the old literary forms beneath a French language surface.

Collaborative Composition of Classical Arabic Poetry

Arabica ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 65 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 163-206
Author(s):  
Erez Naaman
Keyword(s):  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Critical Assessment ◽  
Arabic Literature ◽  
Poetic Form ◽  
Arabic Poetry ◽  
History Of ◽  
Composition Process ◽  
Classical Arabic

Abstract Evidence of collaborative composition of poetry goes back to the earliest documented phases in the history of Arabic literature. Already during pre-Islamic times, poets like Imruʾ al-Qays used to challenge others to complete their impromptu verse and create poetry collaboratively with them. This practice—commonly called iǧāza or tamlīṭ and essentially different from the better known poetic dueling of the naqāʾiḍ (flytings)—has shown remarkable stability and adherence to its form and dynamics in the pre-modern Arabophone world. In this article, I will discuss evidence of collaborative poetry from pre-Islamic times to the early seventh/thirteenth century, in order to present a picture of the typical situations in which it was practiced, its functions, its composition process, and formal aspects. Although usually not producing poetic masterpieces, this practice has the merit of revealing much about the processes of composing classical Arabic poetry in general. In this respect, its study and critical assessment are highly important, given the fact that medieval Arabic literary criticism does not always reflect praxis or focus on the actual practicalities of composing poetry. This practice and the contextualized way in which it was preserved allow us to see vividly the inextricable link between poetic form and the conditions in which poetry was created. It likewise sheds light on the intricate ways in which poets resisted, influenced, and manipulated others by poetic means. Based on the obvious fact that collaborative composition is imbued with the spirit of play, I offer at the end of the article criticism of Johan Huizinga’s famous play concept and his (much less famous) views of early Arabic culture and poetry in light of the evidence I studied.

Sufis in Mecca

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yasser Elhariry
Keyword(s):  
Textual Analysis ◽  
French Language ◽  
Francophone Studies ◽  
Current State ◽  
Sacred And Profane ◽  
Lyric Voice ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
French Poetry ◽  
Classical Arabic

This chapter directly picks up where Stétié ends, with a textual analysis of a poetic cycle of chapbooks by Meddeb. I argue that a renouveau in the Francophone lyric is made possible through his translations of classical Arabic and Sufi poetry. In his chapbooks, Meddeb attempts to refashion himself, after his two successful and widely acclaimed first novels Talismano (1979) and Phantasia (1986), as a mystical, wandering Sufi poet. With Tombeau d’Ibn Arabi (1987), Les 99 stations de Yale (1995), and Aya dans les villes (1999) in particular, Meddeb manically focuses on an adaptational, modern rewriting in French verse of the history of Sufi saints, poets and poetry. Meddeb simultaneously draws on the formal and structural poetics of the pre-Islamic odes (as we will have seen with Tengour and Jabès), but he recasts them in light of the life of the Sufi saints and mystics rather than the pagan poets. Meddeb’s major innovation lies not only in the poetic combination of sacred and profane poetic registers, but also in an original combination of French and Arabic poetic registers with the world of modern American poetics. A central literary case whom I revisit in the conclusion to Pacifist Invasions, a critical re-evaluation of Meddeb reveals him to be indispensable for the successful poetic reconstruction of Francophone studies. I demonstrate how, much like the Sufi poet, and in keeping with ‘Ā’ishah al-Bā‘ūniyyah’s Principles of Sufism, Meddeb’s new Francophone lyric self-inflects as consciousness in search of what lies beyond its knowledge of its current state: situated in relation to itself, its paradoxical internal genealogy, its contemplative meditational mode. The poetic import of Meddeb’s lyric consists of the masterful blending of the figure of the Sufi poet and the Arabic tongue with contemporaneous intonations in French poetry. Meddeb’s writing transverses concurrent and widely divergent poetic trends, and connects them to one another in an original French-language arabesque. Beneath the surface of his first poetic experiments, Meddeb had couched a hidden, propagative poetics of the trace, barely perceptible, held together by thematic and generic modulations, a double lyric voice, and the infralinguistic.

Modern Egyptian renaissance man

1994 ◽  
Vol 57 (1) ◽  
pp. 184-192 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robin Ostle
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Dual Process ◽  
Arabic Literature ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Classical Poetry ◽  
History Of ◽  
Great Tradition ◽  
Renaissance Man ◽  
Modern Arabic ◽  
Classical Arabic

The rise of political consciousness in the Arab Provinces of the Ottoman Empire in the nineteenth century has long been referred to as an era of rebirth or resurrection (nahḍa), and from its earliest stages this period saw a dual process of aspirations to political emancipation and creative waves of cultural regeneration. Thus George Antonius was moved to attribute the beginnings of the Arab national movement to the foundation of a modest literary society in Beirut in 1847; the two figures who dominated the intellectual life of Syria in the mid nineteenth century—Nāṣīf al-Yāzijī and Buṭrus al-Bustānī—were ded icated to the resurrection of the lost world of classical Arabic literature, to the virtual re-creation of Arabic as one of the languages of the modern world, and to preaching the virtues of education based on inter-confessional tolerance and patriotic ideals. The most distinguished area of the early history of modern Arabic literature is neo-classical poetry, whose revival of the achievements of the golden age of the ‘Abbāsids provided the foundation on which the first tentative steps towards the renewal of the great tradition were to be based. Indeed the technical excellence of the neo-classical mode was such that it dominated poetry in Egypt at least until the late 1920s, and for even longer in Iraq and the rest of the Levant.

Translating Translating Tengour

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yasser Elhariry
Keyword(s):  
American English ◽  
First Century ◽  
French Language ◽  
Translation Theory ◽  
English Translations ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One ◽  
Classical Arabic ◽  
Literary Arabic

Chapter 1 begins with a study of the most evidently literal, translational rewriting of a classical Arabic literary corpus. It analyses in depth Habib Tengour’s chapbook Césure (2006). I read Tengour’s literal translations of images and metaphors culled from the archive of the classical Arabic odes, alongside his American translator Pierre Joris’s rendering of his translations of translations. The juxtaposition of the old Arabic texts, the history of their English translations, and Tengour’s original French language poems, which are then cut through with Joris’s American translational idiom, produces a four- sided linguistic refraction that unravels how Tengour unwrites the Arabic, so as to rewrite it forward into a falsely, seemingly monolingual French. I situate the poetics of translation and intertextuality in relation to Tengour and Joris’s respective, trans-Atlantic editorial and publishing worlds. I pay particular attention to how they capture and maintain the ‘pseudo-opacity’ of an original translingual, translational poetics, which they premise on the multicultural plurilingualism of the Maghreb. In so doing, we revisit translation theory from Joris’s perspective as an active contemporary American translator, theoretician, essayist, poetician and poet, with a particular focus accorded to a consideration of the formative, vagrant structure and thematics of the classical Arabic odes. Together, Tengour and Joris point to a twentieth- and twenty-first-century tradition of trans-Atlantic Franco-American translations, which undercuts the place afforded to the French language. I conclude with the assertion that Tengour and Joris render the French language an effaceable, hopelessly transparent mode of translation between two series of opacities: classical, high literary Arabic on the one hand, American English on the other.

Biblical Elements in Koran 89, 6-8 and Its Exegeses: A New Interpretation of “Iram of the Pillars”

Arabica ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 60 (6) ◽  
pp. 651-700
Author(s):  
Paul Neuenkirchen
Keyword(s):  
Arabic Literature ◽  
Comparative Approach ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
New Interpretation ◽  
Classical Arabic ◽  
Critical Overview

Abstract The meaning of the expression “Iram of the pillars” which is found in Kor 89, 7 has been the subject of many debates among ancient Muslim exegetes. The ambiguous signification of this passage has led to a large number of different interpretations and has (seemingly) led to many myths, whether in classical Arabic literature (religious and profane alike) or in modern Western writings. The aim of this paper is to give a critical overview and analysis of the various exegeses for this Koranic verse, to study the developments and history of the ‘Iram myth’ and finally, in light of these elements as well as through a Biblical/Midrashic comparative approach, to suggest our own theory of what was certainly the primitive and forgotten meaning of “Iram of the pillars”.

scholarly journals مكانة المرأة وإسهاماتها في الأدب العربي القديم / The position and contribution of women in Classical Arabic Literature

1970 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
نصرالدين إبراهيم أحمد (Nasr El-din Ibrahim Ahmed Hussein)
Keyword(s):  
Significant Role ◽  
Golden Age ◽  
Arabic Literature ◽  
Islamic Period ◽  
Literature And Society ◽  
Cultural Exposure ◽  
Islamic Empire ◽  
History Of ◽  
Classical Arabic

ملخص البحث:   يتناول البحث مسيرة المرأة، ومكانتها ودورها عبر العصور القديمة، بدءاً من العصر الجاهلي، ومروراً بالعصر الإسلامي والأموي، وانتهاء بالعصر العباسي؛ حيث أدّت المرأة دوراً مرموقاً ومشهوداً لها منذ فجر بزوغ تاريخ الأمة العربيّة، وهذا الدور سطّرته صفحات التاريخ البيضاء شعراً ونثراً؛ فالمرأة وقفت جنباً إلى جنب الرجل مشاركة إياه بكل فعالية في بناء الحضارة العربيّة العريقة، وقد شهد لها الكثير من الباحثين والمؤلفين والكتّاب بتفوقها في هذا المجال الحيوي، ويكون من الإجحاف، ونكران الجميل أن نتناساها ونطوي صفحاتها طي السجل. برزت المرأة  في العصر الجاهلي في أشعار الشعراء؛ حيث وُضعت في مكانة لائقة بها، وكان دورها واضحاً في الجانب الاجتماعي في إصلاح المجتمع، وأدّت دوراً بارزاً بوصفها أديبة وشاعرة، وناقدة، و"الخنساء" مثالاً، كذلك "أم جندب" وحكومتها بين زوجها امرئ القيس وعلقمة الفحل، وأخريات كان لهن شأن عظيم. وإذا انتقلنا إلى العصر الإسلامي، سنجد أن الإسلام مهّد للمرأة بأن تتبوأ مكانة عالية ورفيعة، وكانت زوجات الرسول صلى الله عليه وسلم، والصحابيات خير مثال للاستشهاد بهن، وبدورهن في إصلاح المجتمع والذود عن الدولة الإسلاميّة في ذلك الوقت. وجاء العصر الأموي ولقيت المرأة مكانة مرموقة، انعكست فيها نشاطاتها الأدبيّة والفنّية؛ أما العصر العباسي أو ما يسمى بالعصر الذهبي، فقد كان عصر الانفتاح الثقافي للمرأة؛ حيث شاركت المرأة في جوانب شتى ومتعددة في خدمة الأدب والمجتمع، والحضارة العباسيّة العريقة. إن مكانة المرأة في تلك المجتمعات، وفي تلك العصور القديمة من تاريخ الأدب العربي كانت مشرّفة ومنيرة وبهية، وجديرة أن تعاد صياغتها بشكل يليق بها وبمكانتها لتحتل مكانة الصدارة في تاريخ الأمة العربيّة. الكلمات المفتاحية: الدور المعرفي- الشعر- الخطابة- الوصايا- النقد. Abstract: The study highlights the role of women in different eras beginning from the pre-Islamic period until the golden age of the Abbasids. It is observed that women did play a significant role since the early Arab history. It is a well-documented achievement both in poems and prose. They were active beside men in crafting the direction of the Arab civilization. Evidence was abundant as found in the works of many scholars and researchers. Any attempt to brush aside their efforts would not do justice to these achievements. In the pre-Islamic period there were al-Khansa’ and Ummu Jundub who was famous of her judgment between her husband Umru al-Qais and the famous ‘Alqamah. Others beside them were also contributing significantly. In the Islamic period, the religion had paved the way for them to contribute greatly. The wives of the Prophet Pbuh and his companions were examples to the reforming roles that they played in the society and the Islamic Empire. In the Umayyad period, they continued to be active in activities related to literature and arts. As for the Abbasid era, due to the cultural exposure of that period, women continued to contribute to the progress of literature and society. In conclusion, women were evidently active and progressive in the history of Arabic literature. They contribution is worthy of being highlighted and accorded a significant status in the history of the Arabs.   Keywords: The role of knowledge – poems – sermons – critic.   Abstrak: Kajian ini bertujuan untuk menonjolkan peranan wanita pada era-era berlainan mulai dari zaman Jahiliah sehingga zaman keemasan Abbasiah. Sememangnya wanita dapat dilihat memainkan peranan penting sejak permulaan sejrah kesusasteraan Arab. Ia satu pencapaian yang didokumenkan dengan baik untuk kedua-dua genre iaitu sajak dan prosa. Mereka aktif bergandingan dengan lelaki dalam rah tuju tamadun Arab. Buktinya amat banyak seperti yang ditemui dalam kajian-kajian beberapa sarjana dan penyelidik. Sebarang percubaan menidakkan usaha-usaha mereka tidak akan berlaku adil terhadap pencapaian-pencapaian mereka ini. Di zaman  erdapat tokoh-tokoh ulung sepertial-Khansa' dan Ummu Jundub yang terkenal sewaktu memberikan kritik beliau antara syair suaminya Umru al-Qais dan penyair tersohor 'Alqamah. Wanita-wanita lain di samping mereka turut menyumbang secara aktif. Di zaman Islam, kewajaran perjuangan agama telah membuka jalan untuk mereka  engan lebih menonjol. Isteri Nabi SAW dan para sahabat dalam kalangan wanita menyumbang dalam memainkan peranan-peranan membangunkan masyarakat dan juga Empayar Islam. Di zaman Umawiah, mereka meneruskan peranan tersebut dengan aktif dalam kegiatan berkaitan dengan kesusasteraan dan kesenian. Di zaman Abbasiah pula, disebabkan keterbukaan budaya di zaman itu, kaum wanita meneruskan sumbang mereka kepada pembangynan kesusasteraan dan kemasyarakatan. Kesimpulannya, wanita nyata bergerak aktif dan progresif dalam sejarah perkembangan kesusasteraan Arab. Sesungguhnya sumbangan ini wajar mendapat perhatian demi untuk memberikan satu pengiktirafan terhadap peranan yang dimainkan mereka dalam sejarah perkembangan kesusasteraan Arab.  Kata kunci: peranan dalam memajukan kesusasteraan - sajak - ucapan –nasihat - pengkritik.  

scholarly journals At an Arabic academic conference on the study of contemporary Arabic literature (Rabat, September 2018)

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 1063-1080
Author(s):  
D. V. Mikulsky
Keyword(s):  
Present Report ◽  
Arab Countries ◽  
Arabic Literature ◽  
Cultural Relations ◽  
The West ◽  
Academic Conference ◽  
History Of ◽  
Classical Arabic ◽  
Literary Legacy

the article comprises a report of the 15-th Sharjah conference on contemporary Arabic literature held in Rabat (Morocco) in September 2018. The author, Professor Mikulski (Moscow) provides in detail the list of topics discussed as well as the history of the meeting, which dates back to 2003. The innovative aspect of the present report are the informal interviews taken by Professor Mikulski from some of the most prominent participants. These interviews comprise a number of aspects among which are the personal views on Russia and the Russian traditions of Arabic studies, as well as their concepts of historical and cultural relations between the Arab countries and the West. Of course, the Arab intellectuals could not help to ignore the classical Arabic literary legacy, which continues to be their constant object of cultural and literary reflections and the inexhaustible source of mental pabulum. The article presents a vivid image of the thoughts and views of our Arab colleagues.

A Short History of Classical Arabic Literature

Books Abroad ◽  
1967 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 487
Author(s):  
Arthur Wormhoudt ◽  
Ignace Goldziher ◽  
Joseph Desomogyi
Keyword(s):  
Arabic Literature ◽  
Short History ◽  
History Of ◽  
Classical Arabic
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