ARAB 237
Love, Desire, and Longing in Classical Arabic Poetry Spring 2017
Division I
Cross-listed COMP 237
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Class Details

The genre of ghazal, or love poetry, has a long and fascinating history in classical Arabic literature. In its various guises, it has been a vehicle for expressing many forms of desire, including erotic passion, “platonic” yearning from a distance, and mystical love for the Divine. This course will explore the development of ghazal, beginning with pre-Islamic odes, continuing through the rise of the ghazal as an independent genre, and then taking up its adaptations across the classical and pre-modern Arabic-speaking world. We will pay close attention to aesthetics, tone, emotional effect, and features particular to certain sub-genres of ghazal. Background readings about historical, cultural, and literary contexts will shed further interpretive light on the poetry. Through these sources, which come from lands as diverse as Iberia, North Africa, the Levant, and the Arabian Peninsula, we will investigate how classical Arabic-language love poets expressed issues of gender, class, sexuality, existential despair, hope and loss, and living in relationship to God.
The Class: Format: seminar
Limit: 40
Expected: 15
Class#: 3054
Grading: yes pass/fail option, yes fifth course option
Requirements/Evaluation: 2 papers (5-7 pp., 8-10 pp.), short response papers, class participation
Prerequisites: none
Enrollment Preferences: Comparative Literature majors, Arabic Studies majors
Distributions: Division I
Notes: meets Division 1 requirement if registration is under ARAB
This course is cross-listed and the prefixes carry the following divisional credit:
ARAB 237 Division I COMP 237 Division I

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