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A History of Arabic Literature. By Clément Huart. 2002. Translated by Ladry Mary Loud. Revised and Edited by Edmund Gosse. New Delhi: Goodword Books, 478pp, ISBN: 81-87570-68-7 and Price: DH. 6.00.
This book is originally written by Professor Clément Huart (1854-1926), a French Orientalist who is renowned as editor and translator of Arabic, Persian, Romaic and Turkish sources and for his prolific works covering most of the vast linguistic area. He dealt with many aspects of Oriental studies, including art and literature, history of religions, linguistics, philology, and political history. This is one of his earliest books writing about a history of Arabic literature. From the title itself, the text should be an indispensable guide for any literature student who wishes to have a complete and logical understanding of the Arabic literature, especially for those foreign readers who are non-native speakers of Arabic.
This book has been divided into twelve chapters. It composes about the origins of Arabic poetry, pre-Islamic poetry, the Quran, the Omeyyad dynasty, the Abbasids, Arabic literature of Baghdad down into the nineteenth century and also the periodical press.
The first chapter places the topic of "the climate and the race - origins of Arabic poetry" (pp. 1-9). The author starts his introduction by describing the environment of Arab country, its natural habitat and characteristics of Arab people; how do they relate and affect each other into the mood & concept of composing poems in their poetry. He also mentions that hija (satire poetry) seems to have been one of the most popular forms of early poetry. The poets which also known as the saga and soothsayer were called on to compose these satires, which passed from lip to lip amongst tribes of a common origin and were swiftly answered by other satires, sprung from the brain of the poet of the tribal adversaries.
The second chapter discusses about "the pre-Islamic poetry", which is commonly referred to in Arabic as "??????? ?????" or Jahili poetry. This chapter mentions about the Muallaqat (Arabic: ????????); title of a group of seven long Arabic poems that have come down from the time before Islam. Each is considered the best work of these pre-Islamic poets. The name means "The Suspended Odes" or "The Hanging Poems,"...