Arabic poetry

“ The Arabian poetry which has been most frequently translated and written about in English is Pre-islamic poetry. In especial, the Muallaqat, or the seven so-called suspended poems, has been translated several times. Sir William Jones made the first translation in prose in the eighteenth century. In modern times we have had several translations, one by Wilfrid Blunt and his wife. There has been considerable support for the critical view that these poems represent the highest achievement of Arabic poetry, both among Arabs themselves and Aryan critics. ”

“ The fall of the 'Umayyads and the replacing of the Arabs by the Persians commences the golden age of Arabic literature and scholarship. The older Arabic literature, that namely which was written by Arabs as yet untouched by external influences, consists entirely of poetry, the work of professional bards who sing of desert life and warfare, lament over the deserted camping grounds, boast of their tribe, and abuse their enemies. It forms a distinct class of poetic composition, which has developed its own literary standards, and attained a high standard of excellence in its way. ”

“ In text "Ghayth al-Hátíl = incessant rain of small drops and widely dispread. In Arab. the names for clouds, rain and all such matters important to a pastoral race are well nigh innumerable. Poetry has seized upon the material terms and has converted them into a host of metaphors; for "the genius of the Arabic language, like that of the Hebrew, is to form new ideas by giving a metaphorical signification to material objects (e.g. 'Azud, lit. the upper arm; met. a helper) ." ”

“ The rationalistic objection, that at so great an age, and on the brink of the grave, man is not wont to compose poems, may be refuted by a reference to the history of the ancient Arabic poetry. The Arabic poets before the time of Mohammed often recited long poems extempore,—so natural to them was poetry. ”

“ POETRY.—Poetry still more than eloquence was the favorite occupation of the Arabians from their origin as a nation. It is said that this people alone have produced more poets than all others united. Mohammed himself, as well as some of his first companions, cultivated this art, but it was under Haroun al Raschid and his successor, Al Mamoun, and more especially under the Ommyïades of Spain that Arabic poetry attained its highest splendor. ”

“ Arabic poetry is full of such passages, which abound also in Syrian vernacular songs, which are sung with perfect propriety among all classes. In discussing such a subject as this one can hardly resist the temptation to judge. To me the more chaste way of the West in poetizing feminine charms is far superior to the altogether too free realism of the East, which I do not feel at all inclined to defend. ”

“ A long and tedious apprenticeship is usually required for the attainment to perfection in any of these accomplishments; but the versatile Arab seemed, by intuition, to be able to grasp them all, without previous experience or instruction. In literature, as well, was this pre-eminence of genius disclosed. Poetry was the sole form of literary manifestation appreciated by the Arabic mind; improvisation the only talent it deemed worthy of applause. Even among the most intelligent, nothing deserving of the name of history was preserved ”

“ Even Arabian political articles are to-day written in rhymed prose. But as Chenery said, the history of rhymed prose is the history of Arabic literature. Rhyme is natural to the Arabic language, whereas it is really foreign to the English language.
If European civilization could free itself from the prejudices against Semitic and Asiatic culture, and if the universities, instead of studying minutely the barren medieval literature of Europe before the Renaissance, would give fuller courses in the poetry of the Arabs, Hebrews, Persians and Turks, the exchange would be salutary. ”

“ We read there: “The Arabs had such an interest in poetry, and valued it so highly, that they took seven long pieces selected from the ancient poetry, wrote them in gold on pieces of Coptic linen folded up, and hung them up (‛allaqat) on the curtains which covered the Ka‛ba. Hence we speak of ‘the golden poem of Amra’al Qais,’ ‘the golden poem of Zuhair.’ The number of the golden poems is seven; they are also called ‘the suspended’ (al-Mo‛allaqāt) .” Similar statements are found in later Arabic works. ”

“ To name even the most important of grammarians, anthologists, philologists, critics of Arabia, is to call a long list. Even historians, philosophers, scientists and theologians entered the field of poetic criticism. Every one quoted the poets, consequently poetry was bound up not only with criticism but with Arabic thought. One of the most quoted Arabic critics is Ibn Rashiq, of the eleventh century, whose Umda or Pillar of the Art of Poetry is mentioned often by Ibn Khaldun, the historian. ”

“ Poetry gives the same evidence as language itself. As in other literatures, so in Arabic, darkness is the term of comparison for everything black. The black hero of the best loved Arabic popular romance is pictured as 'black as the colour of darkness, riding on a horse which resembles the darkness of night’ (aswad kalaun al-ẓalâm ʿala jawâd min al-cheyl yaḥkî ẓalâm al-leyl: Rom. of ʿAntar, IV. 183. 14) . This is the source of a poetic figure much used by Arabic poets in application to a mistress with light features and dark hair. ”

“ Before Mahomet the ethics of the Arabs were summed up in muruwwa (custom) . Hospitality, generosity, personal bravery were the subjects of praise; meanness and cowardice those of satire. The existence of poetry among the northern Arabs was known to the Greeks even in the 4th century (cf. St Nilos in Migne’s Patrologia Graeca, vol. 79, col. 648, and Sozomen’s Ecclesiastical History, bk. 6, ch. 38) . Women as well as men composed and recited poems before the days of the Prophet (cf. L. Cheikho’s Poetesses of the Jāhiliyya, in Arabic, Beirut, 1897) . ”

“ Had it not been for the Koran and its cognate literature, by this time the people of Syria, Egypt, Morocco and Oman would perhaps scarcely understand each other, and their written language would differ vastly; but the existence of this literature has kept the written language a unit and put a constant check on the vagaries of dialect.
The last, and chief element of beauty in the Arabic tongue249 is undoubtedly its wonderful literature. In poetry alone, the Arabians can challenge the world; in grammar, logic and rhetoric the number of their works is legion ”

“ Again, in relevance to the mixture of poetry with prose in the prophetic parts of the Book of Jeremiah, it is just to note that the early pre-Islamic rhapsodists of Arabia used prose narratives to illustrate the subjects of their chants; that many later works in Arabic literature are medleys of prose and verse; that in particular the prose of the “Arabian Nights” frequently breaks into metre ”

“ The Arabic critics did not go to the Greek and Roman poems (which they considered cold besides their own) as did the Italians and English to study the nature of poetry. The Arabs studied Greek science, medicine, and philosophy, but not Greek poetry. Books on prosody and poetry appeared after the founding of the system of Arabic meters by Khalil b. Ahmad in the eighth century. There were also the two celebrated schools of grammarians at Basra and Kufa, soon to merge in the school of Bagdad. ”

“ Having a mortal aversion to the details of Arabic prosody, I have persuaded my friend Dr. Steingass to undertake in the following pages the subject as far as concerns the poetry of The Nights. He has been kind enough to collaborate with me from the beginning, and to his minute lexicographical knowledge I am deeply indebted for discovering not a few blemishes which would have been “nuts to the critic.” The learned Arabist’s notes will be highly interesting to students: mine ( §V.) are intended to give a superficial and popular idea of the Arab’s verse mechanism. ”

“ The specimens of poetry from ancient Arabic poetesses, have been gathered from printed and manuscript volumes, and from the lips of the people.
Some accounts of child life in Syria and specimens of Oriental stories and nursery rhymes have been gathered into a "Children's Chapter." They have a value higher than that which is given by mere entertainment as they exhibit many phases of Arab home life. The illustrations of the volume consist of drawings from photographs by Bergheim of Jerusalem and Bonfils of Beirût. ”

“ The presses of Constantinople, Cairo, Algiers, Beyruth, and some other places, reproduce old Arabic works of value, but more translations from European languages than original compositions are printed and lithographed. From Bombay, where more than fifty presses are at work, large quantities of books are exported to countries beyond the British possessions. These books treat generally of religion, poetry, history, or medicine; but as they deal more with ancient than with modern knowledge, they do not tend to propagate progress. ”

“ Of the Badi'a or euphuistic style, "Parleying euphuism," and of AI Saj'a, the prose rhyme, I shall speak in a future page.
The characteristics of the whole are naivete and simplicity, clearness and a singular concision. The gorgeousness is in the imagery not in the language; the words are weak while the sense, as in the classical Scandinavian books, is strong; and here the Arabic differs diametrically from the florid exuberance and turgid amplifications of the Persian story-teller, which sound so hollow and unreal by the side of a chaster model. ”

“ He has surrendered his position as a leader in the world of the near East in order to bring the traditions and genius of the Arabic people to the attention of the Western world. And although commentators have long since acknowledged our debt in literature to the Arabs, who introduced rhyme into Europe over a thousand years ago, and historians have admitted the impetus which was given to the sciences by Arabic philosophers, yet it remains the task of a modern to introduce us in painting to the vast poetical conceptions which constitute a part of the heritage of the Arabian race mind. ”

“ Even reduced to its own resources, this art of Arabic calligraphy is one of the most marvellous forms of decorative skill that has ever sprung from human imagination. It is perhaps the only science of ornament of which it may be said without exaggeration that it possesses a soul, for like the voice, it expresses thought. Owing nothing even to the most cultured parts of the outer world, its independence resembles that of music and seems like the stenography of the innermost beatings of the heart. ”

“ By the early twentieth century a new crop of writers, authors, poets, littèrateurs and scientific workers had been raised and was beginning to inch its way slowly to the front, receiving its stimulation from the living present rather than the dead past. Through their pens the Arabic language, rusty with age and given to the expression of traditional unprogressive thought, received a fresh polish and an injection of new life which started it on its way to becoming a vehicle capable of expressing the finest shades of scientific thought and the most delicate sentiments of the human heart. ”

“ Though speaking a language, copious in the extreme, the words of which have been compared to gems and flowers, literature in the strict sense of that word can hardly be said to have existed; but the Arab had a quick intellect, was always ready with a native vein of rhetoric and was easily aroused by the appeals of eloquence and charmed by the graces of poetry. ”

“ Many critics hasten to reassure us regarding his judgment and discrimination. But even a slight acquaintance with Arabic literature will show that they have been carried [42] away by their prejudice in favour of the subject on which they wrote. In the garden of the Arabian poet every flower is a jewel, every plot is a silken carpet, tapestried with the intricate patterns of the weavers of Persia, and every maiden is a houri, each of whose physical attributes becomes in turn the subject of a glowing quatrain. ”

“ To borrow a simile from a sister art; the Arab poet sets before the mental eye, the dim grand outlines of picture,which must be filled up by the reader, guided only by a few glorious touches, powerfully standing out, and by the sentiment which the scene is intended to express;whereas, we Europeans and moderns, by stippling and minute touches, produce a miniature on a large scale so objective as to exhaust rather than to arouse reflection. As the poet is a creator, the Arabs is poetry, the Europeans versical description. ”

“ In the most ancient times the Arabs had a particular taste for poetry, which among almost all people had opened a way to the most elevated and abstract studies. Their language, rich, flexible and abundant, favored their fertile imagination; their spirit lively and sententious; their eloquence natural and artless, they declaimed with energy the pieces they had composed, or they sang, accompanied with instruments, in a very expressive chorus. ”

“ In no other family of human speech would it be possible that the most antique and original of its dialects, the fullest in its forms, the most uncorrupted in its phonetic structure, the most faithful representative of the ideal type inherent in them all, should be the youngest of their number. But such is the character of the classical Arabic, whose earliest literary monuments are from fifteen to twenty centuries later than those of the Hebrew and Assyrian. ”