{"id":11726,"date":"2014-03-11T08:04:47","date_gmt":"2014-03-11T12:04:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/?p=11726"},"modified":"2014-03-10T10:07:08","modified_gmt":"2014-03-10T14:07:08","slug":"on-ibn-al-hajjaj","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/on-ibn-al-hajjaj\/","title":{"rendered":"On Ibn al-Hajjaj…"},"content":{"rendered":"

…Whose Poems Schoolboys Were Beaten for Memorizing<\/h3>\n

Another excellent post on \u00a0<\/span>MLYNXQUALEY<\/a>‘s Arab literature (in English)<\/a> site,\u00a0<\/span>from<\/em>\u00a0<\/span>1<\/a>\u00a0)<\/span><\/h4>\n
\"51Tef7thPVL._SY300_\"<\/a><\/p>\n

If there were two disappointments I had while reading the opening chapter of Sinan Antoon\u2019s<\/em>\u00a0The Poetics of the Obscene in Premodern Arabic Poetry,\u00a0\u201cIbn al-Hajjaj and\u00a0<\/a><\/em>Sukhf<\/a>: Genealogies<\/a>,\u201d they were: 1) that the full book is listed at more than $70, and 2) that there wasn\u2019t a companion historical novel that gives full imaginative license to a re-crafting of Ibn al-Hajjaj and his contemporaries:<\/em><\/p>\n

As an opening chapter, \u201cIbn al-Hajjaj and\u00a0Sukhf<\/em>: Genealogies<\/a>,\u201d is a delight. Ibn Hajjaj (941 \u2013 1001 CE) was, as Antoon notes, the great al-Mutanabbi\u2019s (915 \u2013 965 CE) \u201ccontemporary, erstwhile enemy and ultimate \u2018other[.]\u2018\u201d<\/p>\n

While al-Mutanabbi\u2019s poetry has remained a part of the Arabic canon, al-Hajjaj\u2019s has fallen off in recent times, something Antoon calls \u201cone of the most serious cases of cultural amnesia and academic neglect.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not hard to see why Ibn al-Hajjaj and his signature\u00a0sukhf\u00a0<\/em>were disappeared from the canon. A manual composed three century after al-Hajjaj\u2019s death \u201cinstructs teachers to prohibit boys from reading or memorizing any of Ibn al-Hajjaj\u2019s poems\u2026and to be beaten if they are found doing so.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Antoon further notes, this both underlines al-Hajjaj\u2019s threat to conservative schoolteacher morality as well as his lasting popularity and fame.<\/p>\n

Antoon goes to some lengths to discuss what is and isn\u2019t\u00a0sukhf<\/i>\u00a0(as a poetic mode),\u00a0<\/i>and where it overlaps\u00a0mujun\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0hazl.\u00a0<\/em>The art of\u00a0sukhf\u00a0<\/i>is variously understood as \u201cgross language and comportment upsetting to the squeamish,\u201d \u201cfoolishness, obscene or nonsensical\u201d and an \u201cincessant breaching and violation of boundaries of all sorts.\u201d<\/p>\n

From al-Hajjaj, trans. Antoon:<\/p>\n

Had I wanted to write serious poetry
\nIt would not be difficult for me<\/p>\n

But then I would merely be like
\nall those who write poetry in our age<\/p>\n

Were it not for me,\u00a0sukhf<\/em>\u00a0would never
\nhave been written down or read
\n\u2026
\nAnd to him who faults me for my\u00a0sukhf<\/em>\u00a0I say:
\nYou most foolish of all people!<\/p>\n

Generally, Antoon writes, modern critics \u2014 Arab and non-Arab \u2014 have also been fools in failing to render al-Hajjaj his poetic due. Antoon quotes Abdelfattah Kilito as saying that \u201cIf Ibn al-Hajjaj is forgotten, it is because his poems do not reproduce that image of Arab culture desired today. No textbook, on the other hand, can afford to ignore the likes of Abu Firas [al-Hamdani] and al-Mutanabbi, who glorify war and represent a reverent image of the past.\u201d<\/p>\n

In any case, don\u2019t you forget: the first chapter,\u00a0Ibn al-Hajjaj and\u00a0<\/a>Sukhf<\/a>,\u00a0<\/em>is available online with many wonderful translated poems and poem-fragments that contemporary schoolchildren would surely get suspended for repeating.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/div>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

…Whose Poems Schoolboys Were Beaten for Memorizing Another excellent post on \u00a0MLYNXQUALEY‘s Arab literature (in English) site,\u00a0from\u00a0MARCH 10, 2014 \u2022\u00a0(\u00a01\u00a0) If there were two disappointments I had while reading the opening chapter of Sinan...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,91,103],"tags":[1507,1095],"class_list":["post-11726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arab-culture","category-poetry","category-translation","tag-ibn-al-hajjaj","tag-sinan-antoon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11726"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11726\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11730,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11726\/revisions\/11730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}