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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
The Life and Times of Abū Tammām

The Life and Times of Abū Tammām

Al-Ṣūlī, Abū Bakr
Gruendler, Beatrice
Gruendler, Beatrice

Hardcover

Series: Library of Arabic Literature, Book 59

Biographies GeneralFiction AnthologiesGeneral Middle Eastern History

ISBN10: 0814760406
ISBN13: 9780814760406
Publisher: New York University Press
Published: Dec 1 2015
Pages: 336
Weight: 1.75
Height: 1.30 Width: 6.20 Depth: 9.10
Language: English

A robust defense of a poetic genius

Abū Tammām (d. 231 or 232/845 or 846) is one of the most celebrated poets in the Arabic language. Born in Syria to Greek Christian parents, he converted to Islam and quickly made his name as one of the premier Arabic poets in the caliphal court of Baghdad, promoting a new style of poetry that merged abstract and complex imagery with archaic Bedouin language. Both highly controversial and extremely popular, this sophisticated verse influenced all subsequent poetry in Arabic and epitomized the modern style (badīʿ), an avant-garde aesthetic that was very much in step with the intellectual, artistic, and cultural vibrancy of the Abbasid dynasty.

In The Life and Times of Abū Tammām, translated into English for the first time, the courtier and scholar Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā al-Ṣūlī (d. 335 or 336/946 or 947) mounts a robust defense of modern poetry and of Abū Tammām's significance as a poet against his detractors, while painting a lively picture of literary life in Baghdad and Samarra. Born into an illustrious family of Turkish origin, al-Ṣūlī was a courtier, companion, and tutor to the Abbasid caliphs. He wrote extensively on caliphal history and poetry and, as a scholar of modern poets, made a lasting contribution to the field of Arabic literary history. Like the poet it promotes, al-Ṣūlī's text is groundbreaking: it represents a major step in the development of Arabic poetics, and inaugurates a long line of treatises on innovation in poetry.

A bilingual Arabic-English edition.

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