Classical Arabic Poetry and Prose

The current panel explores issues in Classical Arabic Poetry, from the pre-Islamic period to the Abbaisd period (9th century C.E.). It starts with the pre-Islamic poet Mulayh b. al-Hakam and addressed his biography through his poetry. The second paper analyzes the poetry of Jarir and al-Farazdaq, two of the prominent poets of the Umayyad period, through a comparison of the duels of these two poets to a modern practice called Dozens , which is also a poetic contest between two poets. The third paper deals with the reconstruction of a poetry collection by the famous Udhri poet Jamil. And the final paper deals with the maqamah prose (a form of telling stories in the classical period) that was produced during the Abbasid period. The panel touches on the variety of poetic and prose outputs in the classical period, with the intent of doing a close analysis of the areas in question through the use of the original texts and the anecdotes in classical compendia