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HISPANO-HEBREW STROPHIC POETRY* Ulf Haxen

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HISPANO-HEBREW STROPHIC POETRY* Ulf Haxen HISPANO-HEBREW STROPHIC POETRY* Ulf Haxen University of Copenhagen The conquest of Spain by the Arabs, allegedly christlichen Westgoten ein kümmerlichen Da- prompted by leaders of the Jewish population sein aufrecht zu erhalten hatten, atmeten un- after the fall of the Visigothic regime, 711, ter den Arabern auf und eigneten sich schnell opened up an era in Medieval European his- genug deren Bildung und Sprache an, um zei- tory which stands unmatched as far as cul- tig an deren Pflege thätigen Anteil zu neh- tural enlightenment is concerned. Philosophy, men".1 belles lettres and the natural sciences flourished In the wake of the cultural revolution2, of- in the academies established by the Arab sa- ten referred to as the "Golden Age", a new vants in such main urban centres as Cordoba, branch of scholarship came into being — Sevilla and Toledo. The Arab conquerors, who Hebrew Philology. Grammatical schools of named the newly acquired land Al-Andalus differing approaches vied with one another ("the country of the Vandals"), quickly thus creating literature on etymology, syntax, adapted themselves to an environment, dif- lexicography etc. The importance of this de- fering markedly in climate, population and velopment for Biblical and Talmudic studies language from their countries of origin (Iraq, was, of course, immeasurable3. Syria, Yemen etc.), or the North-African count- Steinschneider writes about Moses ibn Ezra, ries, through which they had passed on their c. 1070-1134, famous for his Hebrew liturg- march westwards. ical poems, "Moses hat die arabische Bildung From the year 711 to the establishment of ('adab) derart sich angeeignet und liebgewon- the Caliphate in Cordoba, in 932, under Rah- nen, dass er sie unter seinen Glaubensgenossen man III, political stability had been created literarisch zu verbreiten suchte"4. Moses ibn on all administrative levels. During the course Ezra acknowledged the debt of the Jews to of time the cultural and religious centres of their Arab counterparts and in his principal gravity shifted from the East to the Western treatise on Poetics, written in Arabic, he pos- part of the Muslim Empire. The once so fa- es the rhetorical question, "How can it be mous Gaonic academies of Babylonia closed explained that poetry is congenital among the down in 1038, and new schools of Jewish Arabs, whereas among other people it seems learning consolidated themselves on the Iber- an acquired skill"5. His deep admiration for ian peninsular and gained full recognition as the 'adab (belles-lettres) of the Arabs was independent authorities from the Jewish com- to a certain extent shared by his younger con- munities as well as the Arabic Caliphate. temporary and friend, Yehuda Ha-Levi, c. The situation of the Jews under Muslim 1075-1140, although the latter, for "zionis- rule has been well described by Morits Stein- tic" reasons, denounced his attachment to schneider: "Die Juden, welche unter den Arabic culture towards his old age6. Another of the great Hebrew litterati, the paytan and neoplatonic philosopher, Salomon ibn Gabirol, d. c. 1060, the latinized name * To the memory of Professor Bertil Maler. of whom is Avicebron, realized the impending risk of complete assimilation into a Hispano- 36 Arabic socio-culture, and voiced his concern, Maghreb)". His principal source was, how- "They (the Jews) know no Hebrew; half of ever, a man of the East, the Egyptian mag- them talk the language of the Christians, and istrate and poet, Ibn Sana al-Mull‹, c. 1155- the other half Arabic"7 . We have similar state- 1211. He lived in a turbulent time and expe- ments from the Christian camp. As early rienced the overthrow of the Shi'ite Fatimid as the middle of the ninth century the Bishop dynasty, the so-called "Anti-Caliphs", by the of Cordoba, Alvaro, complains that his co- renowned Saladin, who gave name to the suc- religionists are better versed in the theology, ceeding dynasty, the Ayyubids, 1171-1250, of philosophy and literature of the Arabs than Sunni (Orthodox) rule. with the Christian Holy Scriptures and more Besides his administrative duties Ibn Sana conversant with Arabic than with Latin. "Alas", al-Mulk cultivated theological interests and, he exclaims, "the Christians have forgotten above all, poetry and rhetorics. He created their own language ... they spend immense around him an intellectual and literary salon sums of money in collecting Arabic books for and got in this way in contact with itenerant their libraries, and proclaim exerywhere that Arabic, Jewish and Christian poet-musicians this literature is admirable"8. In other words, and men of letters from the Eastern as well the conquered Spanish population yielded, as the Western part of the Islamic Empire. head over heels, to the culture of their con- Ibn Sana al-Mulk's enthusiasm for the nov- querors, infinitely superior to their own. el poetic art of Andalusia inspired him to Reinhardt Dozy, the Dutch Semitist, ascribes write poems in the fashion of the Westerners, the success, militarily, politically and cultural- to the disregard of the "paralysingly conven- ly, of the Arabs in Spain to the achievements tional" (Nicholson) classical Arabic poetry. of the abovementioned Abd al-Rahman III, But he admitted frankly that his muwashshahs, the "hard-working" (l'ouvrier), who laid the which is the technical term for Andalusian foundation of the Western Islamic Caliphate strophic poetry, were only "mere shadows" in Cordoba. In an epitome of his person, and of the genuine art, for the obvious reason that an epoch, Dozy summarizes: "This subtle and he was born and educated far from Andalu- sagacious man, who centralises, who by means sia. of his alliances establishes a sort of political As was costumary among poets Ibn Sana equilibrium, who in his large tolerance calls al-Mulk's muwashshahs, 35 in all, were com- the professors of another religion into his piled in an anthology, a "diwan"; but cont- councils, is a modern king rather than a me- rary to practice our author attached to it, as diæval Caliph"9. an introduction, a reader's manual, describing From the midst of this syncretistic, "Mo- in often painstaking detail the compositional zarabic", milieu a remarkable poetic genre act, the structure of the muwashshah and the emerged. function of its various parts, and depicting the fundamental deviations from classical poetry, e. g. regarding language and proso- The Muwashshah dy. Most important of all is his description of the essential feature of the muwashshah, The study of Mozarabic (from Arabic, mus- which bears the specific name of kharja12, ta'riba, to become arabicized) poetry has proved the last refrainlike stanzas of the muwash- as one of the most fertile, and controversial, shah-poem. fields of research for Semitist and Romanist As far as the subject-matter of the mu- scholars, during the past three decades. washshah is concerned "it can have as its It commenced with Martin Hartmann's theme any of the subjects of classical poetry, pioneering work, Das arabische Strophenge- i.e. love, panegyrics, laments for the dead dicht, "Das Muwashshah"lo. Hartmann's stu- and satire on indecent or ascetic themes". The dy was based upon the available material, ex- author included in the Ars Poetica a collec- tracted from literary encyclopedias, compen- tion of 34 muwashshahs by 11th-12th cen- dious works of belleslettres ('adab), history tury Andalusian poets, employing some of books etc. written by Arabic scholars who lived them as illustrative examples13. and worked the majority of their lifetime in Hartmann's book from 1897 contained a Spain (Al-Andalus) or North Africa (Al- biographical chapter of Arabic muwashshah 37 poets, a descriptive part ("Formenliste" and Qasidals "Versmasse"), and a chapter dealing with the A A history of the muwashshah genre. His ap- b A proach to strophic poetry was classically biased c A (occassionally he strikes a polemic note, when, d A for example, he reproaches the 600 year ear- etc. lier Ibn Sana al-Mulk with his positive atti- tude to Andalusian poetry and his manner Mazwashshahl9 of expressing it; similarly, when Hartmann matla' A blames the Andalusian poets for their dis- pizmon A regard of the rules of the Arabic language, ghusn b their use of "vulgar" themes and "corruption" b of the little short of sacrosanct constituent of b Arabic verse, the metre, he appears more qufl A papal than the Pope). ghusn c Commenting in passing on the Jewish par- c ticipation in the poetic school of Andalusia, c Hartmann opined overtly: "Es wird sich viel- qufl A mehr wohl zeigen: taugten die Juden nichts, so taugten die Andren ebenso wenig oder weniger''14. ghusn d d d A technical parenthesis kharja . A A Muwashshah poetry, and its sister genre the zagal15, broke with three of classical Arabic with nzatld ; ghusn + qufl constitute a strophe poetry's canonized laws, (1) the unity of = bayt. language, e. g. the strict adherence to the gram- Finally the kharja (AA), which according matical rules, established by the philologists. to our chief authorities, Ibn Sana al-Mulk and There was allowance for poetic license, but Ibn Bassam, sets the theme, rhyme and metre they were also codified; (2) unity of rhyme, of the whole muwashshah221. by W. Wright explained thus, "according to The Jewish poets and theoreticians used ancient rule, the two hemistichs of the first Arabic terminology or employed adaptations. verse of a Qasida (classical ode of ab. 25-100 In one case, however, they applied a "Hebrew" verses) must rhyme with one another, and the term, borrowed from liturgical poetry, viz. same rhyme must be repeated at the end of piz zon22, equivalent to nzatld (supra). every verse throughout the whole poem"16; and (3) unity of metre.
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