Laylī and Majnūn : love, madness, and mystic longing in Niẓāmī's epic romance / by Ali Asghar Seyed-Gohrab.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Seyed-Gohrab, A. A. (Ali Asghar), 1968-

Series:

Brill studies in Middle Eastern literatures 1571-5183 ; v. 27.

Brill studies in Middle Eastern literatures, 1571-5183 ; v. 27

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Niẓāmī Ganjavī, 1140 or 1141-1202 or 1203. Laylī va Majnūn.

Niẓāmī Ganjavī.

Love in literature.

Mysticism in literature.

Physical Description:

xii, 368 pages ; 25 cm.

Place of Publication:

Leiden ; Boston, MA : Brill, 2003.

Contents:

1. Studies of the concept of love 1

2. Medieval Persian views on love 5

Chapter 2 "Nizami, the world's word-magician"

1. The poet and his work 25

2. Nizami's language and style 30

3. The narrator's stance in Layli and Majnun 40

4. The romance's structure, metre and origin 50

5. The narrator's sources 55

6. The prologue and epilogue 57

Chapter 3 Characters and lovers

1. Characters in 'Udhrite love poetry 63

2. The character of Majnun prior to Nizami's era 69

3. Nizami's Majnun 74

Chapter 4 The lover's outward appearance

1. Majnun's physical description 79

2. Majnun and the snake 81

3. Majnun and the kingdom of plants 84

Chapter 5 The ascetic and the lover

1. Majnun's asceticism 89

2. Vegetarianism and denial of food 92

3. Rejecting clothing 101

4. Avoiding speech 104

5. Sleep deprivation 107

6. Majnun's alienation from human society 109

Chapter 6 "The king of love"

Majnun's kingship and his bond with animals 115

Chapter 7 "When they love, they die"

Majnun's love-death 127

Chapter 8 "Madness may serve a purpose"

1. Approaches to the madness of Majnun 139

2. Majnun's possession 145

3. The limits of reason 147

4. Majnun as a rational madman 149

Chapter 9 "Majnun, the black starred"

1. Majnun's fate 161

2. Theological concepts of fate 162

3. The doctrine of maslaha 163

4. Majnun's free will, ikhtiyar 167

5. Cosmogonical concepts signifying Majnun's fate 171

6. Time, zaman, zamana as agents of destiny 172

7. Stars and lovers 174

8. Majnun's bakht and daulat 180

9. Majnun's fate based on gnostic principles 183

10. A web of fates 185

Chapter 10 "Pearls scattered from the lips"

1. Majnun's poetic genius 187

2. Poetry as a mirror of Majnun's psychological states 190

3. Varium et mutabile semper femina 198

4. The elegiac monologue 206

5. Majnun's celebrity as a poet and transmitters of his poetry 207

Chapter 11 The ideal beloved

1. Majnun's relationship with Layli 213

2. The beloved's quality and the experience of falling in love 215

3. Religious vocabulary describing the lovers' relationship 227

4. Layli as the mirror of the universe 234

5. Layli, the ideal beloved 237

6. An incarcerated heroine 243

7. Layli's imposed marriage 251

8. Meetings between Layli and Majnun 258

Chapter 12 "Your feet are my crown"

1. Majnun's parental relation 271

2. Majnun and his father 275

3. Majnun and his mother 284

4. Majnun's relation to Layli's father 294

Chapter 13 Of love, chivalry and war

Majnun's relationship with the chivalrous Naufal 299

Chapter 14 "The time of falling leaves"

1. Time and setting in Layli and Majnun 311

2. Night as the marker of time and as a background 314

3. Day as the marker of time and as a background 319

4. The garden as the ornament of the setting 322

5. War as a setting 329

6. The symbolic significance of the cave and the desert 330.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [341]-357) and index.

ISBN:

9004129421

OCLC:

52203194