Tentativo di base per QSA in WW.

Galland, Le voyage à Smyrne. Un manuscrit d’Antoine Galland, éd. F. Bauden, Paris 2000 (M.P. Pedani); Osmanl¬, Ankara 1999 (M.P. Pedani); M. Meouak, Pouvoir souverain, administration centrale et élites politiques dans l’Espagne umayyade (IIe-IVe/VIIIe-Xe siècles), Helsinki 1999 (M.P. Pedani); D. Howard, Venice & the East: the Impact of the Islamic World on Venetian Architecture 1100-1500, New Haven - London 2000 (M.P. Pedani); M.D. Rodríguez Gómez, Las Riberas nazarí y del Maghreb (siglos XIII-XV). Intercambios económicos y culturales, Granada 2000 (R. Tottoli); Y. Dutton, The Origins of Islamic Law. The Qur’an, the Muwatta’ and the Madinan ‘Amal, Richmond 1999 (R. Tottoli); ‘Izz al-Din ‘Abd al-Salam, Majaz al-Qur’an, ed. M.M.H. al-åahabi, London 1999 (R. Tottoli); D.A. King, World-Maps for Finding the Directions and Distance to Mecca, London - Leiden 1999 (R. Tottoli); P. Gran, Islamic Roots of Capitalism. Egypt, 1760-1840, Syracuse 1998 (P.L. Branca); “New Arabian Studies”, 5, Exeter 2000 (P.M. Costa); R. Hetzron (ed.), The Semitic Languages, London-New York 1997 (R. Contini); J. Wansbrough, Lingua Franca in the Mediterranean, Richmond 1996 (R. Contini); E. Kallas, Qui est arabophone?, Gorizia 1999 (A. Zaborski); Les Mu‘allaqat. Les sept poèmes préislamiques, trad. P. Larcher, [Saint-Clément de Rivère] 2000 (A. Ghersetti); Y. Suleiman, The Arabic Grammatical Tradition. A Study in ta‘lil, Edinburgh 1999 (A. Ghersetti); J. Grand’Henry, Grammaire arabe à l’usage des Arabes. Trad. fr. et commentaires des Élements d’arabe, morphologie et syntaxe, II, de R. Chartouni, Louvain-la-Neuve 2000 (A. Ghersetti); P.M. Kurpershoek, Oral Poetry and Narratives from Central Arabia, III, Leiden 1999 (G. Canova); A. Vrolijk, Bringing a Laugh to a Scowling Face. A Study and Critical Edition of the “Nuzhat al-nufus wa-mudhik al-‘abus” by ‘Ali ibn Sudun, Leiden 1998 (G. Canova).

SUMMARIES

ASHARAF A. EISSA

“Majallat al-Jinan”: Arabic Narrative Discourse in the Making

This article examines the life of the journal “al-Jinan”, since its foundation in 1870 by Butrus al-Bustani, to its suspension in 1886, for political reasons. The role of “al-Jinan” in widening the Arab readers’ horizons and fostering a new literary culture is pointed out by the Author, through the presentation of the various sections of the journal, and through the analysis of the long narratives which Salim al-Bustani published in “al-Jinan”. Particular attention is given to the text by Salim which appeared under the title: Hayam fi jinan al-Sham.

ROGER ALLEN

Muhammad al-Muwaylihi’s Coterie: the Context of Hadith ‘Isa ibn Hisham

Studies of the significant place that al-Muwaylihi' s Hadith ‘Isa ibn Hisham occupies in the history of modern Arabic fiction concentrate – naturally enough – on the book versions of the work (beginning with the first edition of 1907). This study however points out that Hadith ‘Isa ibn Hisham has gone through two major transformations. One of them, the fourth edition of 1927, is examined briefly. The second, the first edition itself, is examined in greater detail, pointing out the ways in which al-Muwaylihi severely edited the materials that he had already published in serial form in the family newspaper, Mi¡bah al-sharq, before putting them into book form. The study thus tries to (re-)place Hadith ‘Isa ibn Hisham in its original cultural and social context in the closing years of the 19th century.

BOUTROS HALLAQ

Articulation du particulier et de l’universel chez Yahya Haqqi et al-Madrasa al-Haditha

In the understanding of al-Madrasa al-Haditha, the identity approach ought to be developped through a specific Egyptian literature. It tried to comply with this approach in describing the daily life of the men of the street in Egypt, on one hand, and universal characters on the other. But it failed to find the conjunction between the Local and the Universal; its descriptions are local-bounded, often folkloristic or in a pure abstract humanism. Y. Haqqi tried to solve this task: convinced that we reach the Universal through the Particular, he succeeded to write his fiction, based on the Egyptian reality, asking fondamental questions like: who is the Other? how can I try to come in touch with him and remain myself? How to define the relations between Science and Religion? Following the traditions of famous authors, as for example Dostoevskij, he created characters and objects with a real universal dimension.

ROBIN OSTLE

The “Apollo Phenomenon”

The article deals with one of the most famous short-lived journals published prior to World War II in Egypt, Apollo, entirely devoted to Arabic literature and the arts, and particularly to poetry. The Apollo society, which was created alongside the Apollo journal, with the general aim of promoting the cause of literature and co-operation between writers both within and outside Egypt, is also analized by the Author, who highlights how Apollo gave importance to co-operation between writers who did not necessarily hold the same ideas or objectives.

He particularly analizes the boldness and broad-mindedness of the Apollo group’s mission, based on a conviction of the essentially multi-cultural nature of the future of Arabic literature.

ED DE MOOR

The Rise and Fall of the Review “Shi‘r ”

In this article the Author intends to offer an analysis of the journal Shi‘r as the social and cultural experiment of a group of people, all of them inspired by a strong desire for renewal and cosmopolitanism, in a period in which Arab nationalism had begun to make the Arab world turn in on itself. Trying to clarify what Yusuf al-Khal had in mind when he founded the journal, in 1957, how the members of the group worked together as an editorial board and how Shi‘r came definitively to its end, in 1970, the Author wants to offer a sociological history of the journal, of its editorial processes, its production, its marketing, publishing, printing, financing, its lay-out, structure and finally its contents.

FRANCESCA M. CORRAO

“Shi‘r”: Poetics in Progress

The article examines the role played by the Shi‘r review in the the renewal of Arabic poetry of the late fifties. It was founded in 1957 by Yusuf al-Khal and Adonis. The experience of Shi‘r was an important step in reaffirming the role of poetry as a means to understand reality. The authors of the review legitimated three major innovations: the breaking of the monopoly of monorhyme poetry ; the discovery of common features between Arabic and western poetry; and the opening to the use of dialect in poetry. Some of its contributors felt the poet had a mission to influence the spiritual renewal of society; hence they believed that the founding of aesthetic is only in the ethic of art, not in the engaged poetry or in the engaged literature; the real engagement is in daily life struggle.

The experience of Shi‘r was an important step in the renewal of language and structure of poetry, but far more important was the development of the mystical approach to life, whose passionate belief in the possibilities of rebirth gave hope at the time when the civil war, the loss of faith and even cynicism were the dominant impulse in life and writing.

SOBHI BOUSTANI

Poème en prose et rythme : les écrits de Unsi al-Hajj

Basing our anlysis on the writings by Unsi al-Hajj, this study will endeavour to establish the poet’s poetics of rhythm. One part will be devoted to its theoretical aspect, while another will deal with the analysis of the poetics of rhythm in his prose poems. At a theoretical level, Unsi al-Hajj confirms the utter cleavage existing between classical Arab versification and prose poem form. The latter is not designed to arouse tarab. According to him, the absence of rhythms is counterbalanced by the “closed organic unity” of the poems. The reading of Unsi al-Hajj’s anthology shows an evolution in the organisation of the poems, which is characterized by his more and more striking work on the signifier. The analysis of musicality in his poems confirms this idea.

Although the prose poem form has shattered the pre-established structure of language, the arrangement of the stream of sound has remained a permanent feature in his poetry.

EROS BALDISSERA

Congress of the Foundation of the League of Arab Writers

(Damascus 1954) According to the magazine “al-Thaqafa al-wataniyya”

During the 1950s Syrian intellectuals enjoyed a long period of relative freedom. This atmosphere allowed for the spread of socialist ideas, leading to the formation first of a League of Syrian Writers and later a League of Arab Writers. This paper deals with the congress held in Damascus in 1954 at which the second League was founded. It draws on the detailed account of events published in the leftist Lebanese magazine “al-Thaqafa al-wataniyya”. This short-lived experiment, the League of Arab Writers, was abruptly terminated in 1958, following the establishment of the United Arab Republic, as the nationalist goals of the Nasserist regime allowed no room for leftist parties or cultural organisations.

MONICA RUOCCO

Qadaya wa-Shahadat: la breve vita di una rivista indipendente

The review Qadaya wa-Shahadat (Questions and testimonies) represents, despite its short existence, an important tessera to compose the mosaic of the history of the cultural Arabic press, and to understand the evolution of the Arabic thought at the end of the XX century.

Qadaya wa-Shahadat suggests to reconsider the concepts of modernity (hadathah) and nationalism (qawmiyyah) and links the former to the period of the nahdah rather than to the post-colonial time in which this idea supported the revolutionary theories of Jamal ‘Abd al-Na¡ir and the Ba‘th party.

This review has represented, for his publishers, the realization of an idea, of a dream, and has been more than a simple periodic publication, but a cultural project to reflect upon the history of the Arabic culture of the last century.

RICHARD VAN LEEUWEN

Literary Journalism and the Field of Literature: the Case of “Akhbar al-adab”

In this article the Author will endeavour to discuss the relations between cultural policy and the field of literature. He will focus on the role of the weekly literary review Akhbar al-Adab, analysing its function within the Egyptian literary domain and especially its relations to cultural policy and ideological debates. The effects of these relations on Akhbar al-Adab’s role in the production of literature will be judged. A number of issues from the year 1995 of this review will be examined.

BARBARA MICHALAK-PIKULSKA

From at-Tabatiba’i to Rabitat al-Udaba’ in Kuwait

The beginnings of Kuwaiti literature are connected with ‘Abd al-Jalil al-Tabatiba’i regarded as the first Kuwaiti poet to have played a role in the transfer and implantation of the Arabic poetic tradition to Kuwait. Al-Tabatiba’i’s poetry has value as a historical document depicting Kuwaiti society in the first half of the nineteenth century. Through his creativity he inspired a group of young Kuwaitis who started to write poetry. Among his most talented students was ‘Abd Allah al-Faraj - poet, musician and composer. ‘Abd al-‘Aziz al-RaShid was of great importance in Kuwaiti cultural development. He was a writer and the first author of a history of Kuwait, as well as co-founder of the Literary Club, al-Nadi al-Adabi. A leading representative of the traditional current in Kuwaiti poetry was Khalid al-Faraj. A new stage in literary life was connected with the rapid economic development linked to the discovery of oil, the gaining of independence in 1961, the founding of the Kuwaiti Writer’s Union (Rabitat al-Udaba’) in 1964 and Kuwait University in 1966, and the development of the press.

WIEBKE WALTHER

The Beginnings of the Realistic School of Narrative Prose in Iraq

The article deals with literary developments in Iraq beginning from the 18^th and 19^th centuries. The Maqamat by Abu ’l-Thana’ Shihab al-Din al-Alusi (published posthumously, Karbala’ 1273/1856-7), is regarded as the first Iraqi printed work. Despite being written in classical style, this (and a number of other works) are characterised by a sharp sense of social criticism, and cast useful light (even at times satirising) on the social, cultural and intellectual conditions of the time. The article then analyses predecessors of a modern realistic literature, i. e. Sulayman Faydi’s al-Riwayah al-iqaziyyah (1919), and the literary work of Mahmud Ahmad al-Sayyid (1903-1937), consisting of short stories, sketches and the autobiographic novel Jalal Khalid. Some of M. A. al-Sayyid’s last stories reach literary maturity. The article closes with a look ahead to the period of maturity of modern Iraqi prose literature which begins, for the short story, in the fourties and fifties, and for the novel, in the sixties. It finishes with a brief mention of some excellent novels by Iraqi authors published during recent years.

LUC-WILLY DEHEUVELS

Mouvance littéraire, positionnement et investissement générique: al-Sudd et le “Théâtre de l’esprit”

A lot of Arabic dramas were written and published, but never performed on stage, because of the context and the conditions of representations. However, other texts have been written deliberately, including important differences with what is usually regarded as the chief and basic constituting elements of the drama. This paper intends to demonstrate that point, through the analysis of al-Sudd by Mahmud Mas‘adi (written in 1939-40, published in 1955). This text belongs to a literary tendancy initiated by Tawfiq al-Hakim.

In that sort of dramas, mostly focused on the theme of humain and artistical creation, the uncompletion is in fact part of the very structure of the text and is required by its meaning. This literary tendency of writing needs to be pointed at and a special place should be reserved to it, in the history of modern Arabic literature.

MERCEDES DEL AMO

El conocimiento de la literatura marroquí en España (1940-2000)

References to Moroccan literature written and/or translated into Spanish from 1940 till 2000 are listed under the following sections: popular literature; works originally written in French, English, Spanish and Arabic; literary genres (novel, story, poetry, theater, travel); literature written by women; and the image of Morocco in selected Spanish authors. Remarks and assessment of these publishing and translating activities are included as conclusions.

ELIE KALLAS

Ibn al-Kila‘i (15 ^ème-16 ^ème siecles) pionnier de la littérature neo-arabe

chrétienne du Mont Liban

In this article the A. deals with the Lebanese dialectal heritage of Ibn al-Qila‘i (c. 1445-1516), listing his works contained in 33 manuscripts and indicating where to find each one of them. Almost all this corpus is garshuni - written in the Syriac alphabet - and needs to be edited as such. The A. suggests to create a special series for the Lebanese dialectal heritage and to analyse these mss. one by one, describing their content, and publishing each work worth publishing.