The Routledge Handbook of Arabic Poetry

Comprised of leading international scholars, The Routledge Handbook of Arabic Poetry incorporates political, cultural, and theoretical paradigms that help place poetic projects in their socio-political contexts as well as illuminate connections across the continuum of the Arabic tradition. This volume grounds itself in the present moment and, from it, examines the Arabic poetic tradition's transformations through readings, re-readings, translations, reformulation, and co-optation as they appear in subsequent poetic projects. Furthermore, this collection aims to deconstruct the artificial modern/pre-modern divide and to present the Arabic poetic practice as live and urgent, shaped by the experiences and challenges of the twenty-first century and at the same time in constant conversation with its long tradition. The Routledge Handbook of Arabic Poetry actively seeks to destabilize binaries, such as that of East-West in contributions that shed light on the Arabic tradition's active interactions with other Middle Eastern traditions such as Persian, Turkish, and Hebrew and on South-South ideological and poetic networks of solidarity that informed poetic currents across the modern Middle East. This volume will be ideal for scholars and professional readers of Arabic, Middle Eastern Literature and comparative literature as well as non-specialists interested in poetry and in the present moment of Arabic poetry.