Language, Literature, Arts -- the Zephyrs of Najd: The Poetics of Nostalgia in the Classical Arabic Nasib by Jaroslav Stetkevych / from Arab Poet to Muslim Saint: Ibn Al-Farid, His Verse, and His Shrine by Th. Emil Homerin (1995)

The Zephyrs of Najd: The Poetics of Nostalgia in the Classical Arabic Nasib, by Jaroslav Stetkevych. and London: University of Press, 1993. xii + 201 pages. Append. to p. 234. Notes to p. 297. Bibl. to p.318. Index to p. 326. $52 cloth; $21 paper. From Arab Poet to Muslim Saint: Ibn al-Farid, His Verse, and His Shrine, by Th. Emil Homerin. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press. 1994. xii + 97 pages. Notes to p. 133. Gloss. to p. 141. Bibl. to p. 155. Index to p. 162. $39.95. This review brings together two excellent additions to the library of works in English on Arabic poetry. Jaroslav Stetkevych, professor of Arabic Literature at the University of Chicago, has devoted himself for more than two decades to research and teaching on the subject. Th. Emil Homerin, now at the University of Rochester, is a former student of Stetkevych and thus belongs to what is now often referred to as the Chicago school. Stetkevych's long-awaited study takes as its topic the developments that took place with regard to the nasib, the section of the Arabic qasidah that, as his study clearly demonstrates, first appears as the elegiac opening of the earliest examples of Arabic poetry but then is gradually transformed to become a feature of major symbolic resonance that impinges upon the poem as a whole. In the opening chapter, he examines the qasidah as a structure, using three different approaches: the purely formal approach adopted by the majority of classical Arab critics and of their Western counterparts; a comparison with the structural logic and moods created by the classical sonata form; and lastly, the ternary pattern of Arnold van Gennep's separation-transition-incorporation construct as found in his famous study, The Rites of Passage.(1) This chapter shows standards of scholarship that set the pattern for the book as a whole, providing abundant proof of the amazing breadth and depth of the author's erudition, and not only through a complete familiarity with the Arabic poetic tradition itself--with examples of the poetry rendered into a sonorous English idiom--but through comparison with the poetry and poetics of other traditions, classical and modern. For those who wish to consider Stetkevych's analyses with reference to the original Arabic texts, the Appendix (pp. 205-34) provides numbered examples of every line discussed. In the second chapter, the author analyzes the changing nature of the nasib, examining in detail the poetry of Hassan ibn Thabit, Abu al-Atahiyah, Dhu al-Rummah, Ibn Khafajah, and Ibn al-Farid. Once again, these are the poets whose works are discussed in detail, but the works of many others are also included as, to quote his own words, the author explores peripheries that are rich in entanglements (p. 101). The cogency of the author's argument provides convincing proof of his major contention, namely, that, far from being a static component of the Arabic qasidah, the nasib demands, critically, a constant renewal of interpretation even as it is constantly renewing itself in the alchemist's forge of a poetic vision which filters through historical changes in new moods and preoccupations (p. 102). The third chapter concerns itself with a well-known aspect of the nasib, namely, the presence of place-names. Stetkevych investigates what he terms the nasib's landscape through multiple references that range from the famous opening of Imru al-Qays's mu'allaqah (collection of qasidahs) to a poem composed in Spain by Ahmad Shawqi (d. 1932). The emphasis in the poetry on wistful citations of the Najd region permits a further comparison with the classical tradition of Arcadia. Similarly, the fourth chapter explores the presence of the theme within the Arabic poetic tradition, particularly the fascinating cosmic pastoral whereby the poet becomes shepherd of the firmament itself; again the theme of the chapter is illustrated with numerous examples, the latest being that of Ibn Hazm (d. …