Ancient Arabic Poetry

Abstract

The most illustrious tradition of romantic poetry on oriental subjects, from the Westöstlicher Diwan to Rückert, Platen, Hugo and Leconte de Lisle, was inspired essentially by Indian and Persian epic, lyric and gnomic poetry, referring only to a minor degree to the ancient poetry of the Arabs—although it is precisely Rückert to whom we are indebted for a version of the Hamâsa, a famous anthology of pagan Arabic poetry. Goethe approached this anthology through the versions of Jones, described it briefly in the “Notes and Commentary” to the Diwan, and among other sections retold one tale splendidly in verse: the “Song of Vengeance” of Taâbbata Sharran. Here the force of his genius lifted him well above the bristling Latin of Freytag, through whom he had come to know the song, and brought him very close in lyrical intuition to the original of this masterpiece of debated authenticity. But on the whole, the poetic heritage of the ancient Arabs was not adequately echoed in the literature of the romantic age. Rückert himself, inspired by pagan Arabic poetry, is read by few people today; and the poetry that was his model is studied rather by philologists, for its documentary value. Theodor Noeldeke, at the beginning of his classic study of the Mu'allakat, declared frankly: “It is questionable whether the aesthetic pleasure provided by the study of ancient Arabic poetry is worth the great pains required even to approach an understanding of the same.” It is difficult to stand in opposition to the authority of the “old master” of German orientalists, who confessed that “the more he studied the Semites, the more he loved the Greeks.” Even the most humble author of these lines dares to appropriate for himself the lines of Noeldeke; and yet, beyond every comparison, which cannot help resulting unfavorably for the ancient poets of the desert, he who knows how to love and seek out poetry will find in them authentic artistic values. Even the harsh pagan song can in certain passages interest us, fill us with enthusiasm, and move us.