[Andalusi Studies] Review of Carpentieri, Writing the Twilight (Hermes)

[David Wacks]

From: tmr-l-request at list.iu.edu <tmr-l-request at list.iu.edu> on behalf of The Medieval Review <tmrl at iu.edu>
Date: Tuesday, December 3, 2024 at 10:24 AM
To: tmr-l <tmr-l at list.iu.edu>
Subject: TMR 24.12.02 Carpentieri, Writing the Twilight (Hermes)
Carpentieri, Nicola. Writing the Twilight: The Arabic Poetics of Ageing in Medieval Sicily and al-Andalus. Transcultural Medieval Studies, 2. Turnhout: Brepols, 2023. Pp. x, 190. €70.00. ISBN: 978-2-503-60053-6.

   Reviewed by Nizar F. Hermes
        University of Virginia
        nizarfhermes at virginia.edu


Nicola Carpentieri’s Writing the Twilight: The Arabic Poetics of Ageing in Medieval Sicily and al-Andalus is a beautifully written and expertly researched study that explores the nuanced poetic engagement with ageing, physical and mental waning, and personal and collective loss within the context of eleventh- and twelfth-century Arabic poetry from al-Andalus (Muslim Iberia) and Sicily, regions which, together with North Africa or the “mainland” Maghrib, formed what is known as the Islamic West (al-gharb al-Islāmī). Opening with a succinctly poignant and almost aphoristic reflections on ageing and decline in world literature and culture, the book immediately draws the reader in with its humanist appeal, grounding its scholarly analysis in the works of two premodern poets of the Islamic West and the medieval Mediterranean world: Andalusī Abū Isḥāq al-Ilbīrī (d. 1067) and Arabo-Sicilian Ibn Ḥamdīs al-Ṣiqillī (d. 1133) who spent most of his life in exile in al-Andalus and North Africa and whose moving Ṣiqiliyyāh (nostalgic poems on Sicily), I should mention at the outset and in passing, have been increasingly recognized worldwide, largely because of the impressive scholarly efforts of Nicola Carpentieri (and William Granara) over the past decade.

The introduction, entitled “A Poetics of Ageing” (1-8), not only provides a succinct overview of classical poetry, with a particular focus on Mashriqi (Eastern) poetry and its exploration of themes related to ageing and youth (al-shayb wa-l-shabāb), but also offers a critical examination of the current state of scholarship in this field. Of specific importance to the overall scholarly argument and contribution of the book is the author’s argument that the existing relevant scholarship has primarily focused on Eastern Arabic old age poetry, with limited examination of the Islamic West (Maghrib), which encompasses not only North Africa but also al-Andalus and Sicily. The author provides an expert analysis of the chronological, geographical, biographical, and thematic framework necessary for understanding the works of Abū Isḥāq and Ibn Ḥamdīs as reflections on ageing, both personal and collective, set against the backdrop of a waning Islamic West. As the author succinctly puts it, both poets “fashioned a similar poetics specific to the time and place in which they lived, that is to say, at the periphery of the Islamic world, at a time when its political unity and cohesion were dissipating, and when the peak of its cultural and intellectual florescence was on the decline.” This poetics encapsulated, at once, the two poets’ intimate worlds as ageing men and their public voice as members of a politically ageing society (1).

Chapter 1: “The Twilight of Arabo-Muslim Hegemony in the West: The Rise of Abū Isḥāq and Ibn Ḥamdīs as Political Poets,” (9-70) examines the poets’ emergence as personal and public voices amid the fracturing of al-Andalus and Sicily, where internal conflicts and foreign encroachments symbolized a larger cultural twilight. This central and lengthiest chapter of the book beautifully and expertly explores the political and public verses of the two poets, illustrating how they used panegyrics, invectives, and elegies to navigate shifting alliances and engage with societal issues of their own times while simultaneously poetizing about their own predicaments and personal tragedies. Chapter 2: “The Poetics of Ageing: Al-Shayb wa-l-Shabāb as a Poetic Motif,” (71-118) explores the themes of ageing and youth (al-shayb wa-l-shabāb), demonstrating how the poets reflected on physical decline and nostalgia for youth within their verse. The author examines the cultural backdrop of old age poetry, tracing its development within Arabic literary tradition and highlighting how Abū Isḥāq and Ibn Ḥamdīs uniquely adapted these conventions. Chapter 3: “A Poetics of Loss: The Elegies,” (119-146) analyzes the poets’ elegiac poetry, which captures both personal and collective grief, portraying a profound sense of loss for loved ones as well as for their vanishing worlds. Their elegies weave together private and public sorrow, situating personal bereavement within a broader sense of cultural decline. Particularly significant in this chapter is the translation and analysis of Ibn Ḥamdīs’s heart-wrenching elegies, including his laments of Jawhara, his beloved who drowned while they were fleeing al-Andalus in the wake of the Almoravid conquest (130-137). Chapter 4: “The Poetics of Withdrawal: Ascetic Verse,” (147-168) examines the ascetic themes in the poets’ later works, depicting their retreat from worldly concerns as they confronted aging and the shifting socio-political landscapes of their time. The author compellingly analyzes their ascetic poems (zuhdiyyāt), revealing a nuanced relationship between worldly engagement and existential withdrawal. The book argues that this ascetic poetry is not primarily about religious seclusion, but rather reflects the exhaustion and fragility of a historical era in decline. The Conclusion (169-173) skillfully synthesizes the book’s findings, reaffirming the significance of Abū Isḥāq al-Ilbīrī’s and Ibn Ḥamdīs’s personal and public poetry as reflections of the final years of Arabo-Muslim culture in Sicily and al-Andalus--though, the latter would eventually come to an end with the fall of Granada in 1492.

Throughout the chapters of the book, Abū Isḥāq al-Ilbīrī’s and Ibn Ḥamdīs’s distinct yet comparable nostalgic, elegiac, and ascetic poetic productions are examined within the broader context of the geo-political, socio-cultural, and territorial decline of the “northern” Islamic West, aptly described by the author as the “twilight” period--a term thoughtfully chosen to condense the disintegration of the Umayyad Caliphate in al-Andalus, the waning of post-Emirate Muslim rule in Sicily, and the consolidation of Norman control over much of the island. Throughout their long lives, the poets Abū Isḥāq and Ibn Ḥamdīs witnessed the political fragmentation of their homelands--coinciding largely with largely coincided with the Taifa periods in both al-Andalus and Sicily--each crumbling from within as a result of power struggles. As these two poets grew older and felt the toll of physical and mental decline, Nicola Carpentieri convincingly argues, the social fabric around them began to unravel. Former allies became adversaries, loyalties shifted, and both Sicily and al-Andalus descended into internal strife before succumbing to external forces with the Christian Reconquista in al-Andalus and the Norman conquest of Sicily. Carpentieri uses compelling arguments and elegant translations to show how both poets, despite their different poetic voices, used similar methods to interpret these profound changes in their personal lives and societies. They drew, albeit creatively, on the conventional themes and motifs of the classical Arabic ode (qaṣīda) to express their reflections on ageing, the inevitability of death, the grief of losing loved ones, and the anguish of crisis-stricken homelands.

Overall, Carpentieri presents compelling arguments and elegant poetry translations to demonstrate how both poets, despite their distinct poetic voices, employed similar methods to interpret the profound transformations in their personal lives and societies. Drawing creatively on the conventional themes and motifs of the classical Arabic ode (qaṣīda), they expressed their reflections on aging, the inevitability of death, the sorrow of losing loved ones, and the anguish of homelands in crisis. One of the most interesting arguments in the book is that both poets, even in their “public poems”--such as panegyrics (madīḥ), invectives (hijāʾ)--especially Abū Isḥāq’s against the Jews of Granada (32-40)--and inciting or instigating to fight (taḥrīḍ)--seemingly non-personal compositions, still incorporated direct and indirect references to aging, personal decline, and loss. In my humble view, one of Carpentieri’s most compelling assertions is his argument about Ibn Ḥamdīs’s North African corpus, which largely focuses on the exilic Arabo-Sicilian poet’s panegyrics for the Zīrid dynasty and his Zīrid-Norman war poetry. Carpentieri suggests that even in these works, Ibn Ḥamdīs subtly engaged with themes of old age, the vicissitudes of time, and the ephemeral nature of the world. At the same time, the poet immortalized “the demise of his world and his own decline,” intertwining his physical demise with the dissolution of the ‘old’ Maghrib, best symbolized by the loss of Muslim Sicily” (70).

In the specific chronological and geographical framework of this engaging book, and perhaps for future studies, the work could have been further enriched by engaging with the comparable--albeit reversed--poetic and exilic experiences of towering eleventh-century North African poets, mostly from the Zīrid period (972-1152), who fled Qayrawan to Sicily and al-Andalus in the wake of its siege, sacking, and eventual conquest by the Bedouins of the Banū Hilāl (1050-1057). These poets include Ibn Rāshiq (d. 1063-64 or 1070-71), Ibn Sharaf (d. 1067), Ibn Faddāl (d. 1086), and most relevantly the tragedy-stricken blind poet al-Ḥuṣrī al-Ḍarīr (d. 1095). The latter may, in fact, have encountered the young Ibn Ḥamdīs at the Sevillian court of the ʿAbbādid poet-prince al-Muʿtamid ibn ʿAbbād (r. 1069-1091)--or perhaps even in Aghmat (present-day Morrocco), where both are said to have visited their patron and friend during his forced exile and imprisonment--and is notable for incorporating several poignant reflections on old age and decline in his public nostalgic and elegiac poetic oeuvre, including his moving Qayrawānīyyāt (poems on Qayrawan).

In conclusion, Writing the Twilight: The Arabic Poetics of Ageing in Medieval Sicily and al-Andalus is a highly commendable and insightful work that makes a significant contribution to numerous academic fields, including transcultural medieval studies, comparative literature and culture, Arabic-Islamic studies, North African studies, Iberian studies, Mediterranean studies, Sicilian-Italian studies, and studies of memory and loss, among others.



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