Abundance from the Desert: Classical Arabic Poetry
Kay Hardy Campbell
Raymond Farrin
2011, Syracuse UP, 978-0-81563-222-1, $24.95 hb.
In recent centuries, some literary critics have denounced classical Arabic poetry as monotonous and lacking in structural cohesiveness. In this book, Raymond Farrin brilliantly disproves such claims. He presents 13 of the greatest poets and genres of classical Arabic poetry from 500 to 1250 ce. The author introduces each major poetic genre and the life of the poet being featured, putting the verses into context. After presenting each poem, he charts its structure, demonstrating that each poem has a center, with symmetry at the beginning and end. Arab history unfolds before the reader as he or she moves through the poems. This book requires no background in Arabic, and it will give both general readers and specialists a deeper appreciation of the Arabs’ enormous poetic legacy.
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