THE CRUSADES IN THE ARABIC RENAISSANCE POETRY AND PROSE

The article examines the works of the greatest Arab artists of the 19th and early 20th centuries, the poet Ahmad Shawqi and the novelist Jirji Zeydan, containing references to the era of the Crusades. An analysis of the work of these authors shows that, contrary to the view prevailing in modern historiography, that Arab artists began to actively refer to the Crusades era only in the second half of the 20th century, already in the Arab poetry and prose of the 19th century, numerous references to this era are found. Ahmad Shawki in his poems presents the Crusades as a time of glorious victories of Muslims, which should inspire contemporaries to fight Europeans. In his works both Muslim commanders known to Europeans and the Egyptian naval commander Husam al-Din Lulu, the savior of Mecca and Medina from the crusaders, the hero of the Arab folk tradition, appear as examples of ideal military leaders. Jirji Zeidan's writings are also characterized by a romantic view of the Crusades. The writer portrays this era as the time of noble rulers, such as Salah ad-Din and Richard the Lionheart, who were able to decide the fate of the Middle East on equal terms.

A Classical Source for Petrarch’s Conceit of the Binding Knot of Hair: Apuleius’s Metamorphoses

The conceit of the beloved’s hair ensnaring and binding the poet’s heart and soul is common in Renaissance poetry and particularly widespread in the tradition of Petrarchan love lyric. The topos can be traced back to Petrarch’s canzoniere, or Rerum vulgarium fragmenta, in which Laura’s golden hair is often described in terms of knots and laces tying both the poet’s heart and soul. No classical antecedent has previously been identified for the image. In this study, I propose a possible classical source for the characteristic Petrarchan motif of Laura’s binding hair knot: Apuleius’s Metamorphoses, a manuscript of which the poet owned and which he read and annotated several times. In particular, I show how passages such as Lucius’s celebration of the beauty of women’s hair (Metamorphoses, II.8–9), and especially his declaration of love to Photis, an oath he takes on ʻthat sweet knot of your hair with which you have bound my spiritʼ (ibid., III.23), can be convincingly regarded as a source for Petrarch’s conceit. In addition to the value inherent in the detection of a new source for an influential Petrarchan topos, the present study may have some further implications. It could offer novel arguments for the dating of a series of Petrarchan poems, and it could foster a potentially fruitful reappraisal of the influence of Apuleius’s work on Petrarch’s vernacular poetry.

Ut Architectura Poesis

This chapter investigates the analogy between architecture and literature, exploring the metaphors of the analogy and focusing on British examples. Renaissance architectural theory drew analogies with music, painting, or poetry, and developed these in progressively greater detail. The Horatian doctrine ut pictura poesis was restated in terms of architecture. The chapter then looks at shared number symbolisms. Numbers shared gave the ut architectura poesis doctrine a demonstrable basis. The chapter also considers the symmetry, analogies, and allegory in Renaissance poetry. It explores Renaissance shape poems, as well as the metaphor of the Renaissance frontispiece, which often resembled architectural (especially theatrical) façades. Finally, it examines the importance of Solomon’s Temple in the temple–poem metaphor.

Liquid crystal chemistry and poetry

This paper comments on a recent article “Revolutionary poetry and liquid crystal chemistry: Herman Gorter, Ada Prins and the interface between literature and science” by Hub Zwart (Foundations of Chemistry, published online: 10 July 2020), in which the author explores the influence of the liquid crystal research of Ada Prins on the epic poem Pan written by her long-time lover Herman Gorter. The present paper reviews the basic science of liquid crystals and explains the connections between the work of Prins and its influence on the poem. Other examples of the use of “liquid crystal” as a literary device are identified from renaissance poetry, and the uses of the metaphor in these poems are analysed from a scientific perspective. From these examples it is suggested that creative concepts from poetry may contain elements of substance that appear in hitherto unrecognised scientific realities.

“O thou, that dear and happy isle”: Andrew Marvell’s Representations of Insularity

In stanza XLI of Upon Appleton House, Andrew Marvell strikes a nostalgic note regretting his country’s loss of peace and stability in the chaos of civil wars. In the eyes of the poet, the insular nature of Britain is a blessing and a sign of God’s Providence. Calling Britain a “happy isle”, he combines the classical motif of the Fortunate Islands with the biblical account of the Garden of Eden – a common tendency in the Renaissance poetry. Yet Marvell’s images of insularity as well as his presentation of the effects of political or mental isolation that the quest for a secluded “happy isle” may lead to seem more complex and ambivalent than a mere repetition of a poetic cliché. His extensive panegyric seems to be a laboratory in which the poet tests various models of solitary happiness and geographical insularity known from literature and myth, the results of these experiments often leading to disillusionment brought about by the realisation of man’s irreparably fallen condition.