|
Desert Tracings: Six Classic Arabian Odes by 'Alqama, Shanfara, Labid, 'Antara, Al-A'sha, and Dhu al-Rumma. Tr. from the Arabic
|
| Price: | CDN$ 17.95 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $39. Details |
Availability: Usually ships in 7 to 10 days
Ships from and sold by Amazon.ca
11 new or used available from CDN$ 7.06
Average customer review:
Product Description
According to legend, the Bedouin tribes of pre-Islamic Arabia held poetry competitions during annual fairs near Mecca. The wining poems called Mu'allaqat, or Hanging Odes, were embroidered in gold on banners and suspended from the walls of Arabia's most sacred shrine, Ka'ba. Desert Tracings is a translation of six classical sixth to eighth century odes. Arabic codes (qasidas) traditionally begin with the relationship of the lover to the loved. Usually set at opening in the beloved's abandoned desert campsite, where the only evidence that remains is tent marks and torrent beds in the sand - "naked tracings,/ worn thin, like inscriptions/ carved in flat stones" - the qasida moves gracefully through the thematic parts, the lover's grief, the quest, and the final acceptance of a world deprived of the beloved. Like the oryx-doe trapped within the unyielding cycles of the desert world.
As Michael Sells writes in his introduction, the qasidahas been overshadowed in the West by other Arabic literature, such as The Arabian Nights, but the qasidais the primary literary tradition in both pre-Islamic and Islamic Arabia. The remarkable richness of language and range of mood captured in theses translations help explain their enduring fascination.
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #168449 in Books
- Published on: 1989-05-01
- Original language: Arabic
- Binding: Paperback
- 87 pages
Editorial Reviews
Review
"A wonderfully representative selection of six early Arabic poems. The translations are amazing in their accurate reflection of the nuances of the original" (Roger Allen )
From the Publisher
5 1/2 x 9 trim. Frontis. LC 88-28084
About the Author
MICHAEL A. SELLS was graduated from Gonzaga University in Washington (A.B. 1971) and from the University of Chicago (Ph.D. 1982). He was Andrew W. Mellon postdoctoral fellow in the humanities at Stanford from 1982 to 1984. Since 1984 he has been assistant professor of Islam and comparative religions at Haverford College. He has been poetry editor of the Chicago Review. His home is in Haverford, Pennsylvania.
Customer Reviews
Excellent translation and editing of Arabic poetry
A lovely book if you want to have some understanding of the context of Classical Arabic of the Koran. Without Sells' notes, some of the trapping of pre-Islamic culture would be lost on the reader, the poems would be opaque. I highly recommend the book, the poems, and Prof. Sells' notes.
Evocative
Beautiful, the most lyric translation of the odes I have encountered
