March 17, 2021

Ars poetica

A wide array of poetry is esteemed by those who speak it.
    Some is garbage. Some is soundly proverbial,
and some is lunatic discourse coating its reciter in a pall.
    Some is easy-going, and some is bombast. There are quiescent endings
        and there are lines that ramble on and on.
In poetry, there are refuse-flingers, plagiarists
    and imitators, and there are some who make it new.
Leave that! and tend the verses of your own weaving.
    Some are bound to be noble, after you have journeyed through.

Lines 55-58 of a 97-line poem by Nabighat Bani Shayban (meter: basīṭ)

tr. by David Larsen at 11:54 AM  

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February 23, 2021

Two new articles

1. "Night and Day in Islamicate Literary Dispute" appears in Disputation Literature in the Near East and Beyond, ed. Enrique Jiménez and Catherine Mittermayer (de Gruyter, 2020), 191-213. Thanks to Enrique, and to Geert Jan for the connect.

The title of the collected volume 'Disputation Literature in the Near East and Beyond' appears on the book's cover, printed in white letters on an orange background, along with the names of the editors, the publisher, and the series title 'Studies in Ancient Near Eastern Records'.The title of the collected volume 'Approaches to the Study of Pre-modern Arabic Anthologies' appears on the book's cover, printed in white letters on a red background, along with the names of the editors, the publisher, and the series title 'Islamic History and Civilization: Studies and Texts'. At the center of the cover is the photograph of a contemporary art quilt that seems to depict a large blue-green face with a yellow nose, framed by the spines of books along all four of the quilt's sides.

2. "Towards a Reconstruction of Abū Naṣr al-Bāhilī’s Kitāb Abyāt al-ma‘ānī" appears in Approaches to the Study of Pre-modern Arabic Anthologies, ed. Bilal Orfali and Nadia Maria El Cheikh (Brill, 2021), 37-83. (This is the forthcoming article mentioned in Larsen 2018, p. 210, note 78.) Thank you to the editors, especially Bilal who put me on the path to abyāt al-ma‘ānī in 2015.

tr. by David Larsen at 7:23 AM  

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