1st Edition
Wolfhart Heinrichs´ Essays and Articles on Arabic Literature General Issues, Terms
Wolfhart Heinrichs’ Essays and Articles on Arabic Literature: General Issues, Terms is the first of two volumes that showcase a great number of Heinrichsʼ writings on his central field of research: Arabic literature. This volume specifically looks at poetry and rhetoric, and their indigenous theories and terminologies.
Wolfhart Heinrichs (1941-2014) was James Richard Jewett Professor of Arabic at Harvard University. He is remembered as a significant adviser to Fuat Sezginʼs fundamental Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums; as an editor of and contributor to the Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second edition; and, most importantly, as an author of many independent studies on Arabic literature, many which were groundbreaking in the history of Arabic philology. He is also known for his studies on Semitic linguistics and Islamic jurisprudence.
This volume collects relevant bibliographical data, offers an introductory essay on the author by his distinguished student Michael Cooperson (UCLA), and provides a selection of Wolfhart Heinrichs’ essays. The articles in this volume deal with general issues in the field that are central to pre-modern Arab and Islamic culture, and their concepts and terminologies. An index of classical authors, book titles, and technical terms concludes the volume.
This volume and the accompanying volume will appeal to students and researchers in the field of Arabic and Islamic Studies, and particularly to those interested in Arabic literature.
Frontispiece (A Portrait of the Scholar as a Young Man)
Foreword by Michael Cooperson
Introductory Editorial Remarks
General issues
Literaturtheorie
Einführung
Philology
The Classification of the Sciences and the Consolidation of Philology in Classical Islam
Literary Theory: The Problem of its Efficacy
Poetik, Rhetorik, Literaturkritik, Metrik und Reimlehre
Rhetorical Figures
Klassisch-arabische Theorien dichterischer Rede
Prosimetrical Genres in Classical Arabic Literature
Die altarabische Qaṣīde als Dichtkunst
Authority in Arabic Poetry
“Manierismus” in der Arabischen Literatur
Obscurity in Classical Arabic Poetry
Modes of Existence of the Poetry in the Arabian Nights
Early Ornate Prose and the Rhetorization of Poetry in Arabic Literature
Naḳd
Terms
Istiʿārah and Badīʿ and their Terminological Relationship in Early Arabic Literary Criticism
Paired Metaphors in Muḥdath Poetry
On the Genesis of the Haqîqa-Majâz Dichotomy
“Takhyīl” and its Traditions
Rose Versus Narcissus. Observations on an Arabic Literary Debate
Notes on the Index
Index of Classical Authors, Selected Book Titles, and Key Terms
Biography
Hinrich Biesterfeldt is a retired Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at Ruhr University Bochum, Germany. He received his PhD in 1970 in Göttingen. He is the author of books and articles on Arabic literature and the history of the sciences in Islam. Together with Sebastian Günther, he is the editor of the series Islamic History and Civilization.
Alma Giese is an Arabist who received her PhD in 1980 in Giessen, Germany; a translator of numerous works from classical Arabic literature into German; and the widow of Wolfhart Heinrichs.
"Like dear members of a dispersed tribe gathered again; like precious stray camels rounded up; like scattered lustrous pearls strung at last: here, in this treasure trove, are brought together many matchless studies, the opera minora of a major scholar, Wolfhart Heinrichs, whose learning is as deep as it is wide, ranging from Arabic poetics, poetry, and poets to Muslim jurisprudence and Semitic linguistics."
Geert Jan, retired Laudian Professor of Arabic, Oxford University.
"With these seminal and incisive articles, Wolfhart Heinrichs played a major role in the late twentieth century renaissance in the study of classical Arabic poetry and poetics. They showcase his mastery of the Arabic literary critical tradition, his command of the rhetoric and architectonics of the qasida, and his keen sense of aesthetics. Heinrichs reminds us that Arabic poetry and poetics did not exist in an intellectual vacuum but were coterminous and contiguous with trends and development in disciplines such as law and theology."
James E. Montgomery, Sir Thomas Adams´s Professor of Arabic, Cambridge University.
