Tuesday, November 3, 2026 · 天火 · tianmu.org

Classical Poetry

Classical Arabic poetry, including the pre-Islamic ode tradition and the Mu'allaqat.

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Texts

The Diwan of Abu'l-Ala — Henry BaerleinHenry Baerlein’s free English verse rendering, in 109 quatrains, of poems chosen from the Syrian poet Abu'l-Ala, chiefly from the Sikt al-Zand and the Lozum ma la Yalzam, with his commentary keyed to the quatrains and an appendix on the poet’s name, in the second edition of 1909 in the Wisdom of the East series.The Literature of Arabia — Epiphanius WilsonThe 1900 anthology The Literature of Arabia, with critical and biographical sketches by Epiphanius Wilson: three episodes of the Romance of Antar in the translation of Étienne Delécluse and Wilson, sixty-two short Arabic poems in J.D. Carlyle’s verse translations, from Lebid and Hatem Tai to the caliphs of Bagdad, with notes on their poets, and the Seven Voyages of Sindbad and Aladdin’s Wonderful Lamp from the Arabian Nights as edited by Andrew Lang.The Luzumiyat of Abu'l-Ala — Ameen RihaniAmeen Rihani’s English verse rendering of 121 quatrains chosen from the poems of the blind Syrian poet Abu'l-Ala al-Ma'arri in the Luzum ma la Yalzam and the Suct uz-Zand, with his preface on the poet’s life and thought and his notes to the quatrains, in the second edition published in New York in 1920.The Mu'allaqatThe Seven Suspended Odes — the supreme masterworks of pre-Islamic Arabic poetry, composed in the sixth century and said to have been hung on the walls of the Ka'ba. Good Works Translation from Arabic.