Antarah Ibn Shaddad: Heracles of Arabia

Abstract

The interaction between Arab culture and the ancient Greek legacy took off during the eighth century. At Baghdad a library, known as the House of Wisdom, was established under the Abbasid caliphs which led an unprecedented translation movement of Greek texts into Arabic. This movement which marked the golden age of Islamic culture resulted in a considerable knowledge of ancient heritage in almost all fields of learning except creative literature (Etman 2004; Leezenberg 2004; Pormann 2006). As a result of this neglect Greek literature remained unknown to Arabs until the early decades of the twentieth century when the Nahda, or awakening movement, aroused Arab intellectuals to resume the work of the ancient Arab translators in Baghdad twelve centuries earlier. The 1904 translation of the Homeric Iliad by Sulaiman al-Bustani (1856-1921) is the earliest work of classical literature to be available in Arabic (Pormann 2007). However the earlier neglect undoubtedly denied Arab-Islamic culture an inestimable opportunity to benefit from, and probably make a contribution to, the study of classical literature. From the anthropological perspective Arab literature is thought to be almost entirely realistic in the sense that almost no room is found for myth to play a part; that the vast majority of classical Arabic literature belongs to the genre of lyric poetics with various themes including satire, eulogy, mysticism, romance, and other themes. Nevertheless the culture knew other genres, among them was the oral epic, ranging from pre-Islamic heroism in the tales of Antarah Ibn Shaddād and Al-Zeir Salim, to the 11th century epic of Taghribat Bani Hilal, which in later ages became part of written literature. The narrative style, themes, and content of these epics seem to overlap with the ancient model of heroism, and it can prove that, whatever may be the reasons for Arab literature’s failure to engage with ancient Greek literature for any reason, it was not because of a lack of interest in the themes and story-patterns of Greek poetry. It is the aim of this paper to illuminate the characteristics shared by Arab and ancient Greek literature on the basis of a specific example: it will compare the heroism of Antarah Ibn Shaddād with the Greek model of Heracles. Its main scope centers on the labors of epic heroes which reflect non-realistic narration. The paper will first give an intensive synopsis of Antarah Ibn Shaddād and will then focus on particular parts of the epic which are relevant to our main theme before concluding with the outcome of the comparison. Bibliography Blanshard, A. 2005. Hercules : a heroic life, London: Granta. Brommer, F. 1986. Heracles : the twelve labors of the hero in ancient art and literature, New Rochelle, N.Y: A.D. Caratzas. Etman, A. 2004. The Greek Concept of Tragedy in the Arab Culture: How to Deal with an Islamic Oedipus. In Rereading Classics in 'East' and 'West': post-colonial perspectives on the Tragic. Eds. F. Decreus & M. Kolk Gent: Documentatiecentrum voor dramatische Kunst, 281-99. 2008. Translation at the Intersection of Tradition: The Arab Reception of the Classics. In A companion to classical receptions. Eds. L. Hardwick & C. Stray Malden. Oxford: Blackwell, 141-52. Harrison, T. & Kustow, M. 2004. The labourers of Herakle , Cambridge. Heath, P. 1996. The thirsty sword : Sirat Antar and the Arabic popular epic. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press. Kruk, R. 2006. Sīrat ῾Antar ibn Shaddād. In Arabic Literature in the Post-Classical Period. Eds. A. Roger and D. S. Richards. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 292-305. Leezenberg, M. 2004. Katharsis, Greek and Arab Style. On Averroes’s Misunderstanding of Aristotle’s Misunderstanding of Tragedy. In Rereading Classics in 'East' and 'West': post-colonial perspectives on the Tragic. Eds. F. Decreus & M. Kolk Gent: Documentatiecentrum voor dramatische Kunst, 300-15. Mccaughrean, G. & Ross, T. 1997. The twelve labours of Heracles, London: Orchard. Pormann, P. E. 2006. The Arab cultural awakening (Nahda) 1870-1950, and the classical tradition. In International journal of the classical tradition, 13/1: 3-20. 2007. The Arabic Homer: An Untold Story. In Classical and Modern Literature, 27/1: 27-44. Rawlings, L., Bowden, H. 2005. Herakles and Hercules : exploring a Graeco-Roman divinity, Swansea: The Classical Press of Wales. Stafford, E. 2009. Herakles, Routledge.