The beloved in Middle Eastern literatures : the culture of love and languishing / edited by Alireza Korangy, Hanadi Al-Samman, Michael C. Beard.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Korangy, Alireza.

Al-Samman, Hanadi.

Beard, Michael C.

Series:

Library of Middle East history ; v. 71.

Library of Middle East history ; 71

Language:

Arabic

English

Persian

Subjects (All):

Love in literature.

Middle Eastern literature--History and criticism.

Middle Eastern literature.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Physical Description:

xiii, 353 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

London : I.B. Tauris, 2018.

Language Note:

English text, with selections in Persian and Arabic with parallel English translations from the Persian and Arabic.

Summary:

In the long literary history of the Middle East, the notion of "the beloved" has been a central trope in both the poetry and prose of the region. This book considers the beloved in its classical, modern and postmodern manifestations, taking into account the different sexual orientations and forms of desire expressed. From the pre-Islamic 'Udhri (romantic unrequited love), to the erotic same-sex love in thirteenth-century poetry and prose, the divine Sufi reflections on the topic, and post-revolutionary love encounters in Iran, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, The Beloved in Middle Eastern Literatures connects the affective and cultural with the political and the obscene. In focusing on the diverse manifestations of love and tropes of the lover/beloved binary, this book is unique in foregrounding what is often regarded as a "taboo subject" in the region. The multi-faceted outlook reveals the variety of philological, philosophical, poetic and literary forms that treat this significant motif. Book jacket.

Contents:

Dangerous Love

1 Writing to the End of Love: Wahid and the Motif Extremes of Ibn al-Rumi 13

2 Sexual Displacement in Season of Migration to the North 41

3 The Seduction of Fayruz Bahri: The Affective Dimensions of Cultural Politics in Gamal al-Ghitani's Hikayat al-Khabi'a (2002) 60

Divine Love

4 Satan as the Lover of God in Islamic Mystical Writings 85

5 Reverence for the Beloved as a Religious Metaphor: A Study of Raja'a 'Alim's Hubba (The Beloved) 102

Gender and Love

6 Individualism and the Beloved in the Poetry of Furugh Farrukhzad 133

7 Making Love through Scholarship in Jamil Buthayna 155

8 Jahan Malik Khatun: Gender, Canon, and Persona in the Poems of a Premodern Persian Princess 177

Erotic Love

9 Pleasing the Beloved: Sex and True Love in a Medieval Arabic Erotic Compendium 215

10 Love and Lust in the Early Islamic Republic: Amir Hassan Cheheltan's Revolution Street 237

11 Tempting the Theologian: The "Cure" of Wine's Seduction 248

Dialectical Love

12 Lovers in the Age of the Beloveds: Classical Ottoman Divan Literature and the Dialectical Tradition 285

13 The Semantic Field of Love in Classical Arabic: Understanding the Subconscious Meaning Preserved in the Hubb Synonyms and Antonyms through Their Etymologies 300.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1784532916

9781784532918

OCLC:

920719986