Andalusian Poet Research Articles

Ibn Gabirol and Judah ha-Levi’s Usage of Dialogue: The Role of the Disciple in Fons Vitae and that of the King in Kitāb al-Khazarī

The literary framework of Solomon Ibn Gabirol’s Fons Vitae is a conversation between a master and a disciple. In this article, the nature of the disciple’s questions will be analyzed in order to explain the advantages of the dialogical process in Ibn Gabirol’s thought. The literary framework of Judah ha-Levi’s Kitāb al-Khazarī is similar to that of Fons Vitae. Ha-Levi’s composition is built as a conversation that allegedly took place between the king of the Khazars and a Jewish scholar (ḥaver). Analysis of the king’s responses to the ḥaver shows that the king did not fully understand the ḥaver’s lessons, in which the deep meaning of Judaism is taught. In this article, the king’s responses will be analyzed and, likewise, the question of Judah ha-Levi’s intention in using this literary sophistication. As is shown in this article both famous Andalusian poets and thinkers, R. Judah ha-Levi and R. Solomon Ibn Gabirol, masters of linguistic phrasing and style, used the dialogical form not only as an opportunity to present their world views, but also as a method by which to critique their own philosophies.

The eloquence of the eyes in Andalusian poetry from conquest until the fall of the Caliphate

The mention of the eyes in the poetry of a vast sea and no matter how we tried to fight, we find it is full of more and more mysteries As the description of the eyes was the tool of the Andalusian poet poetry as nature Everything has an eye borrow a description of it was this was our tour when the most important descriptions of the eye or loan borrowed and different similes . We hope that we have been in our study of the descriptions of the eye in the hair and colors and the presence of her tears with a long pause at different meanings of the eye had many male poets have their hands and their tools in every statement or purpose of yarn and praise and complaint and others .

Becoming Indians: Cervantes and García Lorca

This article deals with the reception of Cervantes’s works, particularly Don Quixote de la Mancha in India, and the select works of Andalusian poet Federico Garcia Lorca.

Uriah Kfir. A Matter of Geography: A New Perspective on Medieval Hebrew Poetry. Leiden: Brill, 2018. 164 pp.

Reviewed by: A Matter of Geography: A New Perspective on Medieval Hebrew Poetry by Uriah Kfir Jonathan Decter Uriah Kfir. A Matter of Geography: A New Perspective on Medieval Hebrew Poetry. Leiden: Brill, 2018. 164 pp. doi:10.1017/S0364009419000187 "The Hidden Praises of Time Have I Seen" is a panegyric by a poet named Pinḥas, a rival of the more famous Todros Halevi Abulafia (1247–d. after 1298), in honor of Don Çag Yiẓḥak ben Ẓadok, a courtier in the service of Alfonso X of Castile. The poem opens with a fictional poetic speaker recounting a "prophetic" vision, a gathering in which poets come from all directions to boast over their specific locales. After the representatives of the East, North, and South speak, they call for the prince of the West, but no one answers until Pinḥas himself steps forth and boasts of its qualities. The participants "whisper to one another about [End Page 214] the one for whom kingship is fitting" until Time (i.e., Fate) interjects, "What have I to do with North, East, and South? The West have I acquired! / Behold, my seal and its cord [Genesis 38:18] are yours; the mark of dominion have I set upon your beloved's forehead." The "beloved," of course, refers to the addressee of the poem, Don Çag Yiẓḥak ben Ẓadok. Pinḥas's masterful poem participates in a discourse of post-Andalusian Hebrew poetry that centered on geography, a subject of cultural import after the period of the great Hebrew poets of al-Andalus (Samuel ha-Nagid, Solomon ibn Gabirol, Judah Halevi, etc.) had come to a close. Clearly for Pinḥas, the West (which meant Spain from a Mediterranean perspective) could claim superiority over other regions, and here the claims of poetic accomplishment and political legitimacy dovetail poignantly. The recent book by Uriah Kfir, based on a Hebrew doctoral dissertation (Tel Aviv University), provides an in-depth view of the fascinating dynamics of geographic debate in Andalusian and post-Andalusian Hebrew literature. (The dissertation also offers critical editions of many of the texts discussed.) The approach departs from existing scholarship in that previous scholars (with a few exceptions) have thought more in terms of literary development across geography rather than the way in which geography itself functions as a topic within medieval Hebrew literature. Rather than focusing on the degree to which post-Andalusian poets depended on, selectively absorbed, or departed from Andalusian literary conventions, Kfir investigates the cultural tensions of place, wherein al-Andalus and later Christian Iberia functioned as a "center" with a venerated literary tradition, while other locales—including Italy, Provence, Egypt, and Iraq—functioned as its "periphery." In approaching the corpus in this way, Kfir reads through prisms that have been employed fruitfully in postcolonial theory in Europe and the United States, including within the field of modern Hebrew literature. The book is divided into two main sections, the first of which deals with the Iberian "center" from the eleventh through the thirteenth centuries. Here Kfir discerns a four-part process ("distinction, amplification, promotion, and preservation") by which the hegemonic claims of the earliest generations of Andalusian poets are reproduced by authors of Christian Iberia for the retention of hegemony in the face of rising Hebrew centers in Provence and the Islamic East. Kfir first shows how the great poets of what has been termed the Golden Age of Hebrew poetry in al-Andalus promoted the primacy of the Jewish culture of the Islamic West. Thus Samuel ha-Nagid asserted not only his literary prowess but also his independence from Hai Gaon of Baghdad in legal matters. Andalusian Jews represented themselves as the descendants of Jerusalem exiles, hence claimants of pure Hebrew speech, and also as the inheritors of Eastern geonic authority. Hebrew authors of Christian Iberia, though they departed from their predecessors in significant ways, could make the case for continuing the Andalusian tradition most easily and represent their superiority not as a matter of mere emulation but rather as one of innate ability. The second part of the book presents a series of case studies of authors from Iraq, Egypt, Italy, and Provence during the thirteenth...

A Matter of Geography: A New Perspective on Medieval Hebrew Poetry by Uriah Kfir

Reviewed by: A Matter of Geography: A New Perspective on Medieval Hebrew Poetry by Uriah Kfir Jonathan Decter Uriah Kfir. A Matter of Geography: A New Perspective on Medieval Hebrew Poetry. Leiden: Brill, 2018. 164 pp. doi:10.1017/S0364009419000187 "The Hidden Praises of Time Have I Seen" is a panegyric by a poet named Pinḥas, a rival of the more famous Todros Halevi Abulafia (1247–d. after 1298), in honor of Don Çag Yiẓḥak ben Ẓadok, a courtier in the service of Alfonso X of Castile. The poem opens with a fictional poetic speaker recounting a "prophetic" vision, a gathering in which poets come from all directions to boast over their specific locales. After the representatives of the East, North, and South speak, they call for the prince of the West, but no one answers until Pinḥas himself steps forth and boasts of its qualities. The participants "whisper to one another about [End Page 214] the one for whom kingship is fitting" until Time (i.e., Fate) interjects, "What have I to do with North, East, and South? The West have I acquired! / Behold, my seal and its cord [Genesis 38:18] are yours; the mark of dominion have I set upon your beloved's forehead." The "beloved," of course, refers to the addressee of the poem, Don Çag Yiẓḥak ben Ẓadok. Pinḥas's masterful poem participates in a discourse of post-Andalusian Hebrew poetry that centered on geography, a subject of cultural import after the period of the great Hebrew poets of al-Andalus (Samuel ha-Nagid, Solomon ibn Gabirol, Judah Halevi, etc.) had come to a close. Clearly for Pinḥas, the West (which meant Spain from a Mediterranean perspective) could claim superiority over other regions, and here the claims of poetic accomplishment and political legitimacy dovetail poignantly. The recent book by Uriah Kfir, based on a Hebrew doctoral dissertation (Tel Aviv University), provides an in-depth view of the fascinating dynamics of geographic debate in Andalusian and post-Andalusian Hebrew literature. (The dissertation also offers critical editions of many of the texts discussed.) The approach departs from existing scholarship in that previous scholars (with a few exceptions) have thought more in terms of literary development across geography rather than the way in which geography itself functions as a topic within medieval Hebrew literature. Rather than focusing on the degree to which post-Andalusian poets depended on, selectively absorbed, or departed from Andalusian literary conventions, Kfir investigates the cultural tensions of place, wherein al-Andalus and later Christian Iberia functioned as a "center" with a venerated literary tradition, while other locales—including Italy, Provence, Egypt, and Iraq—functioned as its "periphery." In approaching the corpus in this way, Kfir reads through prisms that have been employed fruitfully in postcolonial theory in Europe and the United States, including within the field of modern Hebrew literature. The book is divided into two main sections, the first of which deals with the Iberian "center" from the eleventh through the thirteenth centuries. Here Kfir discerns a four-part process ("distinction, amplification, promotion, and preservation") by which the hegemonic claims of the earliest generations of Andalusian poets are reproduced by authors of Christian Iberia for the retention of hegemony in the face of rising Hebrew centers in Provence and the Islamic East. Kfir first shows how the great poets of what has been termed the Golden Age of Hebrew poetry in al-Andalus promoted the primacy of the Jewish culture of the Islamic West. Thus Samuel ha-Nagid asserted not only his literary prowess but also his independence from Hai Gaon of Baghdad in legal matters. Andalusian Jews represented themselves as the descendants of Jerusalem exiles, hence claimants of pure Hebrew speech, and also as the inheritors of Eastern geonic authority. Hebrew authors of Christian Iberia, though they departed from their predecessors in significant ways, could make the case for continuing the Andalusian tradition most easily and represent their superiority not as a matter of mere emulation but rather as one of innate ability. The second part of the book presents a series of case studies of authors from Iraq, Egypt, Italy, and Provence during the thirteenth...

Homenaje a Federico García Lorca de Silvestre Revueltas

This article is about the process of creation, reception, and musical analysis of the Homenaje a Federico Garcia Lorca, the first musical work dedicated to the Andalusian poet, composed in 1936 by Silvestre Revueltas. Their analysis shows the features of neo-nationalistic musical style of Revueltas, by his profound transformation of folk music and indigenous tunes of Mexico.

The Vocabulary of nature in the poetry of Ibn Mujbar Al Muwahhidi Alandalusi ( Buhtori Al Andalus )

The Andalusian poets were given a magical nature , in which the Andalusia souls were most concerned , and their senses and their interests were expressed. The expressions of nature appeared in their various manifestations in many or all of the Andalusian poets works .
 I chose among these poets Ibn Mujbar , known as Bohtori Al Andalus , to be the subject of our research .It dealt with an introduction and two articles , the first one deals with The Vocabulary of silent nature , the second one deals with The Vocabulary of living nature , and I ends this research with conclusion of the most important results that emerged from the research

The impact of society in formulating the philosophical and intellectual vision of the Andalusian poet

The impact of society in formulating the philosophical and intellectual vision of the Andalusian poet

Los armarios del primer franquismo: el diario del poeta Juan Bernier

The repression against homosexuals during the first years of the Spanish postwar period is one of the unresolved issue of historiography about the period. The publication of the diaries of the Cordovan poet Juan Bernier has allowed us to have a first-hand source for the study of homosociability practices and to know the «closet» strategies put into practice to avoid persecution. This work studies these forms of concealment and the intimate and social repercussions of the «closet» in the Andalusian poet.

Entre "poesis" y "scientia": aspectos del alfabeto poético de la naturaleza en Antonio Machado y Eugenio Montale

This investigation arises in the wake of the existence of promising and not yet examined affinities between Antonio Machado’s detailed notions about landscape and Eugenio Montale’s wide geo-botanical knowledge; he knew and admired Andalusian poet’s work thanks to the reading of Gerardo Diego’s Anthology. The article follows a comparative perspective between the literatures of two “sister” languages and finds its inspiration in the suggestive rhetorical question asked by the Sevillian author: “Nature is only an alphabet / of the poetic language / But, is there a better one?”. The author of Campos de Castilla mentions an extraordinary quantity of wild or cultivated plants with the scientific exactitude of an expert naturalist and shares his “simply love of Nature” (and love towards the simplicity of Nature) with the author of Ossi di seppia; the “poetry of objects” by the Genovese poet, whose selection of vegetables specimens intuits Machado’s clear mark, is oriented towards those rough and rocky landscapes of his native Ligury region that reveal him cosmic values. Both poets share the same detailed look of hic et nunc, analogous descriptive strategies, a stilus miserorum and the description of neo-simbolic paysages de l’âme.

خطاب الموت في شعر ابن خفاجة الأندلسي - قصيدة الجبل أنموذجاً

This study raises the problem of chronic death anxiety in his poetry, although this subject became for granted in Islamic thought. He shows (bizarre) strange concern of death with absolute satisfaction in the inevitability and comprehensiveness of death. Therefore, this study utilizes psychology in an attempt to clarify this anxiety that turned into speech that can be read clearly at the heart of his poems, especially in this poem. This study goes in two directions: A trend that clarify the deepened death speech and his tireless efforts to humanize inanimate objects to be used to survive in life with glory. The latest trend reveals the literary discourse used by the poet to represent the idea of conflict between death and survival. تثير هذه الدراسة إشكالية تفشي قلق الموت المزمن في شعر ابن خفاجة الأندلسي على الرغم من أن هذا الموضوع غدا من المسلمات به في الفكر الإسلامي، مما يعني أن هذا القلق متولد خارج إطار القناعات الدينية، ولكنه مترسب في أغوار النفس. والشاعر يظهر من ذلك قلقاً عجيباً من الموت ويتشبث بمفاهيم البقاء، مع قناعته التامة بحتمية الموت وشموليته، فقاد ذلك إلى أرق الشاعر وشغل تفكيره بالمصير المنتظر، ومن هنا تستثمر هذه الدراسة جزئية القلق من الموت لدى ابن خفاجة وما انبنى عليها من صراع نفسي. كما تحاول أن تستجلب مقدرات علم النفس في محاولة لاستجلاء فضاءات هذا القلق في شعر ابن خفاجة الأندلسي، وهي فضاءات تحولت إلى خطاب يمكن أن يقرأ بوضوح في ثنايا شعره، وبالأخص قصيدة الجبل، وهي نص يرتهن إلى ثنائية الموت والبقاء، مما يحتم على الدراسة أن تسير في اتجاهين: اتجاه يكشف ملابسات تعمّق خطاب الموت في شعر ابن خفاجة ومحاولاته الدؤوبة لأنسنة الجمادات ربما من قبيل الاستفادة من قدرتها على البقاء والسمو في الحياة. واتجاه آخر يكشف الخطاب الفني الذي لجأ إليه الشاعر لتمثّل فكرة الصراع بين الموت والبقاء.

The Poet and Daughter of the Sea: Animated Ships in Andalusian Arabic Poetry★

The Mediterranean Sea has stirred the imagination of Andalusian poets of the tenth and eleventh centuries. They wrote many poetic maritime scenes with lively details about sea and ships. Describing ships as camels ranging over the land is the central core-image of these scenes. The poets’ perspective of ships reveals their unique character and aspires to an aesthetic truth. This article will concern itself with some of the ships’ depictions in Andalusian Arabic poetry, and will illustrate, in particular, the ways by which poets refer to the ships’ external characteristics in order to represent them as animated beings in the sea vista. These epithets coincide with the medieval perception of animals that generally particularize their appearance by some qualitative characteristics. By means of some of animal epithets like physiological features, anatomical references, behavioural traits and feminine characters, poets succeeded in referring to ships as the most animated objects on the maritime scene. ☆ I wish to express my gratitude here to my teacher Professor George J. Kanazi, Department of Arabic Language and Literature, University of Haifa, for his valuable remarks that improved the early drafts of the article. To Dr. Marsha Benshushan, Department of Foreign Languages and Professor William Freedman, Department of English, both of the University of Haifa, my thanks for their freely offered help with the English translation of the poetry.

Current Trends in the Study of Hispano-Arabic Literature. The Problem of the Distinctiveness of the Individual Andalusian Poet: The Case of the Poet Muḥammad b. Idrīs b. Marǧ al-Kuḥl (d. 634 H)

The article analyses the poems of the Andalusian poet, Muḥammad b. Idrīs b. Marǧ al-Kuḥl (d. 634/1236) and especially the reoccurrence of three characteristic features of his poetry: i.e., the manneristic play with metaphors, the mention of Bedouin names, and the emphatic usage of symmetric patterns.

Animal Description in the Poetry of Ibn Ḫafāǧaǧa

Everyone who occupies himself with the Dīwān of the Andalusian poet Ibn Ḫafāǧa will be confronted with his animal descriptions. The reason, however, that I have occupied myself with a poem of Ibn Ḫafāǧa in which animal descriptions are prominent, is that I wanted to make a brief analysis of the structure of qaṣīdas by Ibn Ḫafāǧa and others, especially with regard to the succession of the different themes. The poem of Ibn Ḫafāǧa which will be analysed is a laudatory poem on Abū Yaḥyā (Poem No 2, p. 33, in his Dīwān, ed. by as-Sayyid Muṣṭafā Ġāzī, Alexandria 1960).

An Andalusian poet of the Fourteenth Century: Ibn al-Ḥājj

There is in the British Museum an Arabic MS (Or. 5670) of some 32 folios entitled Kitāb qarā'in al-qaṣr wa-maḥāsin al-'aṣr fī madḥ amīr al-muslimīn [sic] Abī 'Abd Allāh ibn Naṣr and ascribed to the adīb Ibrāhīm b. 'Abd Allāh b. al-Ḥājj. This ascription arouses no suspicion at first sight, for the kunya of the Nasrid sultan of Granada Muḥammad V was indeed Abū 'Abd Allāh, and there was at his court a poet and littérateur of repute named Ibrāhīm b. al-Ḥājj. The description of the MS in the catalogue takes this ascription at its face value. The purpose of this paper is to set forth as much as can be discovered about the poet Ibn al-Ḥājj and his works and to discuss the ascription of the extant fragments bearing his name.