Description in Classical Arabic Poetry: Wasf, Ekphrasis, and Interarts Theory (Brill Studies in Middle Eastern Literatures) (Brill Studies in Middle Eastern Literatures)

276 Pages·2003·3.89 MB·English

by  Akiko Motoyoshi Sumi

DESCRIPTION IN
CLASSICAL ARABIC
POETRY:
WASF, EKPHRASIS,
AND INTERARTS
THEORY
AKIKO MOTOYOSHI SUMI
BRILL
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DESCRIPTION IN CLASSICAL ARABIC POETRY
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BRILL STUDIES IN
MIDDLE EASTERN LITERATURES
SUPPLEMENTS TO THE
JOURNAL OF ARABIC LITERATURE
The series Studies in Arabic Literature has now expanded its purview to include
other literatures (Persian, Turkish, etc.) of the Islamic Middle East. While
preserving the same format as SAL, the title of the expanded series will be Brill
Studies in Middle Eastern Literatures (BSMEL). As in the past, the series aims to
publish literary critical and historical studies on a broad range of literary
materials:classical and modern, written and oral, poetry and prose. It will also
publish scholarly translations of major literary works. Studies that seek to
integrate Middle Eastern literatures into the broader discourses of the humanities
and the social sciences will take their place alongside works of a more technical
and specialized nature.
EDITED BY
Suzanne Pinckney Stetkevych
VOLUME XXV
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DESCRIPTION IN
CLASSICAL ARABIC
POETRY
WA‘F, EKPHRASIS, AND INTERARTS THEORY
BY
AKIKO MOTOYOSHI SUMI
BRILL
LEIDEN •BOSTON
2004
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This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Sumi, Akiko Motoyoshi.
Description in classical Arabic poetry : waßf, ekphrasis, and interarts theory / by Akiko
Motoyoshi Sumi.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
ISBN 90-04-12922-7 (alk. paper)
1. Arabic poetry—History and criticism. 2. Ekphrasis. I. Title.
PJ7541.S84 2003
892.7’1009—dc22
2003057806
ISSN 0169-9903
ISBN 90 04 12922 7
© Copyright 2004 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored
in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written
permission from the publisher.
Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal
use is granted by Brill provided that
the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright
Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910
Danvers, MA 01923, USA.
Fees are subject to change.
PRINTEDINTHENETHERLANDS
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v
To the memory of my mother
Tomoko Motoyoshi
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CONTENTS
Preface ........................................................................................ ix
Acknowledgments ........................................................................ xv
A Note on Translation and Transliteration ............................ xvii
Introduction ................................................................................ 1
Chapter One
Contest as Ceremony: A Pre-Islamic Poetic Contest in
Horse Description of Imru" al-Qays vs. 'Alqamah
al-Fa˙l ...................................................................................... 19
Chapter Two
Remedy and Resolution: Bees and Honey-Gathering in
Two Hudhalì Odes ................................................................ 61
Chapter Three
Reality and Reverie: Wine and Ekphrasis in the 'Abbàsid
Poetry of Abù Nuwàs and al-Bu˙turì .................................. 92
Chapter Four
Sensibility and Synaesthesia: Ibn al-Rùmì’s Singing
Slave-Girl ................................................................................ 122
Chapter Five
Poetry and Portraiture: A Double Portrait in a Panegyric
by Ibn Zamrak ...................................................................... 155
Conclusion .................................................................................. 194
Appendix of Arabic Texts ........................................................ 199
Works Cited ................................................................................ 235
Index ............................................................................................ 243
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PREFACE
At present, we scarcely find secondary literature on the subject of
classical Arabic poetry or the qaßìdah studied from the perspective of
modern Western literary theories and interartistic perspectives. This
book demonstrates that those contemporary theories are useful for
discovering and reconstructing a possible original meaning of the
qaßìdah.
This study was submitted in its original version as a doctoral dis-
sertation to the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures,
Indiana University (October 2001); the study has now been reassessed
and revised. The subject of the study is waßf or “description” as one
of the salient characteristics of the qaßìdah tradition. We find some-
thing similar to waßf in the Western tradition under the name of
ekphrasis. Originally interpreted in the Western rhetorical tradition
as “clear and distinct description” of any object, ekphrasis in its mod-
ern understanding bears a more limited sense, “verbal representa-
tion of non-verbal texts.” In this modern conception, ekphrasis is
concerned with the transdisciplinary field of intermedial and inter-
arts studies.
This study aims at reexamining the functions and significance of
waßf in a selected group of Arabic qaßìdahs. My goal is to reveal
unrecognized aesthetic dimensions in the qaßìdah genre in a way that
is consistent with Western critical discourse. I employ various theo-
ries of culture and anthropology, of art history, and of interarts stud-
ies, including the concept of ekphrasis, which refers to the representation
in verbal art of the other arts: painting, singing performance, and
architecture.
The qaßìdah must be analyzed within its conventional framework
in light of its thematic unity and “frame of reference” (a set of stan-
dards, beliefs, or assumptions governing perceptual or logical evalu-
ation or social behavior).1 One aspect of classical Arabic poetry’s
conventionality, reflected in every ode in this study, is its bipartite
1 The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., s.v. “frame of reference.” For its further
meaning, see pp. 124–25 in Chap. 4.