Body in Arabic Love Poetry

This book radically re-interprets the nature of medieval Arabic love poetry in the classical age. It challenges stereotypical ideas about the absence of the body in ʿUdhri love poetry. Investigating the ʿUdhri tradition through close readings of the classical 10th-century Arabic sources including anthologies such as the Kitab al-Aghani, the book contributes to literary studies on the representations of the body. It also includes close readings of difficult literary texts in classical Arabic including the work of ʿUrwah b. Hizam, Majnun Layla, Qays b. Dharih, Jamil Buthaynah and Kuthayyir ʿAzzah. The author re-appraises the relationship between love, poetry and Arab society in the 8th to 11th centuries. She avoids familiar clichés about the purity of love in ‘Udhri poetry. Broadly speaking, this book is an Arabic counterpart to the western medieval concept of unconsummated courtly love. It questions the traditional much-vaunted emphasis on chastity and the assumption that this poetry omits any concept of the body.

Middle eastern philology

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