Philip F. Kennedy

According to Aristotle, a well-crafted recognition scene is one of the basic constituents of a successful narrative. It is the point when hidden facts and identities come to light-in the classic instance, a son discovers in horror that his wife is his mother and his children are his siblings. Aristotle coined the term 'anagnrisis' for the concept. In this book Philip F. Kennedy shows how 'recognition' is key to an understanding of how one reads values and meaning into, or out of, a story. He analyses texts and motifs fundamental to the Arabic literary tradition in five case studies: the Qur'an; the biography of Muhammad; Joseph in classical and medieval re-tellings; the 'deliverance from adversity' genre and picaresque narratives.

This is the first book to present the life, times and poetry of one of the greatest poets in the Arab tradition, Abu Nuwas. Author Philip Kennedy provides the narrative of Abu Nuwas's fascinating life, which was full of intrigue and debauched adventure, in parallel with the presentation of his greatest poems, across all genres, in easy and accessible translations, giving commentary where needed.

Fifteen essays on literature, linguistics, history and epigraphy. Contents include: Maysir-gambling in early Arabic poetry ( N Jamil ); the Qu'ran as a source of law: the case of zakat (alms-tax) ( Y Dutton ); On the difficulty of knowing mediaeval Arab authors: the case of Abu I-Faraj and pseudo-Isfahani ( H Kilpatrick ); Mahfuz's urban battlegrounds ( R Ostle ); Inscriptions of companions of the prophet in the Merv Oasis ( V Porter ); Muslim jizya-payers in Christian Sicily ( J Johns ); The Mu'allaqat in the west: a brief bibliographical survey ( H Bleaney ); Theomnestus of Nicopolis, Hunayn ibn Ishaq, and the beginnings of Islamic veterinary science ( R Hoyland ); Historians and the Arabic biographical dictionary ( P Auchterlonie ).

Classical Arab civilization produced the most extensive and highly developed bacchic tradition in world literature, In this book, Kennedy traces the history of wine poetry from its origins in sixth century Arabia to its heyday in Baghdad at the turn of the ninth century. He focusses on the work of the great Abu Nuwas (d. c. 813), placing his wine songs in context with those of his contemporaries and with other poetic genres such as amatory, invective, ascetic, and gnomic verse.