Good Introduction to Classical Arabic Literature

Night & Horses & the Desert: An Anthology of Classical Arabic Literature by Robert Irwin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is an excellent introduction to classical Arabic literature--lots of instruction, lots of notes. I learned a lot.

Unfortunately, I thought it was an anthology, like the Norton ones for English or American literature. Big fat books of poetry, mostly--remember those? That misconception was not really my fault. The subtitle, "An Anthology of Classical Arabic Literature," says it right out. But... it's not really. (IMO.)

No, this is a textbook. A good one, for sure, so I give it 4 stars for that. But it's not like anthologies I have used before. ("Introductory anthology" maybe? Closer.) For the most part, the author provides one example of each type of literature or genre, or one piece of writing from a key author, and that's all you get. Moving on. I thought I'd be finding page after page of poetry, but that ended up being a small fraction of the book. Flipping through the book shows that in seconds. (By contrast, similar books on classical Japanese or Chinese poetry show lines of verse on almost every page, with little besides.)

In addition, much of the book is dedicated to prose. That's fine, actually, but the selections were chosen to provide examples, not really to be read for pleasure, so there are only bits and pieces from the selected works. Almost nothing here is printed in its entirety. (I can't remember anything, anyway.) That doesn't make for a very satisfying or aesthetically pleasing read, and as an old whole language teacher it disappointed me quite a bit.

In short, this is an excellent example of a the wrong thing, at least from my perspective. I wanted to read for pleasure; I wanted to find multiple examples of well received poetry; I wanted to be immersed in the literature. It doesn't do that. Apparently, based on other reviews, it makes a good textbook, so that's good. That's the best use for it, I think. And despite my complaints, I found it useful as a primer and as a source for ideas for further reading. I'm not sorry I read it.

Cautiously recommended. It's well done, even if it wasn't what I wanted. I found it so-so as a pleasure read, but it makes a good entry into Arabic literature.

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