Early Arabic Poetry
Early Arabic Poetry: Select Poems
By Dr Alan Jones
Hardback
580 pp, Ithaca Press, ISBN: 9780863723872
November 2011
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Ithaca Press is pleased to announce the publication of Early Arabic Poetry: Select Poems by Professor Alan Jones. This new edition of Early Arabic Poetry combines the two volumes first published in 1992 and 1996, bringing them together with a new foreword and introduction by Professor Jones, which covers the major background problems faced by students of early Arabic poetry. The book will appeal to academics and students in the fields of Middle East Studies, Arabic, literature and poetry.
The book is divided into two main sections: the first section contains a study of fifteen poems from two of the more vivid genres: laments and poems by the outlaws. The second section focuses on famous odes. The poems are analysed in minute detail, providing the student with all the information needed to understand the texts and to consider each poem’s overall thrust and purpose.
The study of early Arabic poetry is a difficult one for a number of reasons; it is the work of people of a very alien milieu – the great composers were camel-dependant nomads; its grammar has many complications that do not survive in the later language; its texts were transmitted orally for up to two-and-a-half centuries; and there are serious problems about authenticity. It is nevertheless a fascinating and rewarding area of study, from which all later Arabic poetry stems.
This book provides unique insights into ideas prevalent in the region at the rise of Islam. In his introduction, Professor Jones describes how ‘Poetry had a number of facets that took it into the realms of magic’. As well as the inspiration of the poet by his own spirit, and the magic of the sound of poetry recitation, poetic utterances were believed to contain magical forces, particularly when the poem was intended to denigrate or curse. Thus the book transcends mere analysis of poetry to provide a rich critique of the complexities of the subject and the era.
Alan Jones taught Arabic, Turkish and Islamic Studies at Oxford from 1957 to 2000, when he retired from his post as Professor of Classical Arabic. Amongst his special interests are pre-Islamic poetry, the Qur’an, and the early growth of Islamic studies. He has also published key works on the poetry of Muslim Spain. His translation of the Qur’an was published in 2007.
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