Year: 1986
Type: article
Abstract: Although the conceit of the 'battlefield of love' is not uncommonly encountered in Arabic literature, and although the combination of a number of themes in the same poem is quite standard, the particular manner in which Ibn Khafajah divides his poem 278 (in Ghazl's edition)' into a martial scene and an erotic scene, with apparently only the most tenuous connexion between the two, is most unusual, if not unique.The poem exists, at any rate in its fullest form, only in the British Library MS 416, and was virtually unknown until it appeau-ed in Ghazl's edition.^The extracts from it that are included in anthologies such as al-Dhakhirah oflbn Bassam^ and Nqfh al-fib of al-Maqqari* comprise only lines 33-34, 36-44 and 48, and it is consequently only from this section that modern anthologists such as Jawdat al-Rikabi' and Henri Peres® have quoted.Per^s even concluded-perhaps from line 44-that the subject of the poem was a girl, rather than a boy.The complete poem makes it quite clear that this is not so.It is a piece of considerable poetic merit, but one requiring fairly close attention for the appreciation of precisely what the poet is attempting.Ibn Khafajah (1058-1139), an inhabitant of the neighbourhood of Valencia, is considered to be one of the most original of the poets of al-Andalus, which began in the 11th century to develop its own characteristic poetic styles.Although he says, in the preface to his Diwdn, that he is largely dependent on Eastern models, he has very much his own style, as evidenced in the present poem.His poetry has attracted a good deal of attention in recent years;^ part of his Diwdn, however, preserved in a Leiden MS, still remains unpublished.^The text of the poem is given in an appendix to this article.Here we shall first offer a translation, followed by a detailed commentary and a general discussion of its nature and structure.' Diwdn Ibn Khafajah, ed.Mustafa Ghazi, Alexandria 1960, 346-9.' ibid., muqaddimah, 23.' cd.Ibsan 'Abbas, Beirut 1979, III (2), 588-9.• ed.Ibsan 'Abbas, Beirut 1969, I, 689-90." Fi l-adab ol-Andaltisi, Cairo 1970, 145.* La poesie andaiouse en arabe classique au Xle siicU, P?iris 1953, 403-4.' e.g., Gregor Schoeler, "Ibn Kattani's Kitab at-Talbihdt und das Problem des 'Hispanismus' der andalusisch-arabischen Dichtung", ZDMG 129 (1979), 43-97; J.C. Burgcl, "Man, Nature and Cosmos as intertwining Elements in the poetry of Ibn Khafajah",y^L XIV (1983), 31-45.• MS.Or. 14.056.Arie Schippers proposes to publish an edition of the poems contained in this MS in the near future.
Source: Journal of Arabic Literature
Authors: John Mattock, Arie Schippers
Institutions: University of Glasgow, University of Amsterdam
Language: English
Topic: Medieval Iberian Studies
Subfield: Classics
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W1987141002