Literature

Legends Related To The Conquest Of Spain

Quintus Curtius History, Literature , , ,

Musa Ibn Nusair (موسى بن نصير) lived from 640 to 716 A.D. and served as the Umayyad governor-general of the province of Afriqiyya (North Africa).  It was he who planned and directed the Arab conquest of the Gothic kingdom of Spain.  The biographer Ibn Khallikan, writing in Baghdad in 1274, sketched the outline of his career and notable deeds.  Ibn Nusair’s full name was Abd al-Rahman Musa Ibn Nusair, and he was noted throughout his life, we are told, “for prudence, generosity, bravery, and piety.”  No army under his command was ever defeated.

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The Sorrow Of The Grammarian Of Basra, Iraq

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Abu Faid Muwarrij al-Sadusi was a grammarian from the city of Basra, Iraq.  We do not know the precise date of his birth, but he is reliably said to have died in the year A.D. 810 (year 195 in the Islamic calendar).  His biographer Ibn Khallikan says that he studied at the school of Abu Zaid al-Ansari, and showed a particular talent for poetry and philology.  We are also told that he accompanied the Abbasid caliph al-Mamun to Khorasan, and eventually took up residence in Marw and Nishapur.

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The Rose Of The Alhambra

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We will tell the tale of the Rose of the Alhambra.  For many years after the city of Grenada came under the control of the Spanish kings, it remained a quiet and secluded place.  Mute and desolate were its haunting spires; and, while every stone bore a secret, they contented themselves with accommodating the restless spirits of an Almoravid past.  But this changed with the accession of Philip V.  After his marriage to Isabella, he desired to visit Granada with his retinue.  The clatter of horses’ hooves, the blaring of courtly trumpets, and the cries of heralds and pages again resounded through the walls of the ancient city.

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The Mystery Of Cicero’s Lost Work “On Glory”

Quintus Curtius History, Literature , , ,

Of the literary works of classical antiquity, only a fraction have survived to the present day.  What fraction this is, we do not know; one estimate places it at one-fourth, but the true figure will never be known.  The reader may wonder how it can be that literary masterpieces could have been permitted to fade into obscurity, and then oblivion; but, on further reflection, he will marvel more at the fact that anything at all survived from antiquity than rue the losses we have suffered.  Printing and the mass production of books are relatively new inventions.  For most of history (in Europe at least) books could only be reproduced as fast as a copyist could transcribe them.  Multiplicity was the only insurance against destruction:  the more copies in existence, the better the book’s chance of survival.

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The Pursuit Of Work, And The Quest For Ideals

Quintus Curtius Literature, Thought , , , ,

In 1893 Leo Tolstoy published an essay whose title was rather clumsily translated into English as “Non-Acting.”  In it the great novelist compared the relative merits of two positions, one held by Emile Zola, and the other held by Alexandre Dumas.  Both Zola and Dumas had been asked to state their opinions on what they believed to be the basic forces that move, or should move, humanity.  Tolstoy, mystic that he was, saw these rival opinions in terms of a cosmic competition between “the force of routine, tending to keep humanity in its accustomed path,” and “the force of reason and love, drawing humanity towards the light.”

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Solomon Outwits The Queen Of Sheba

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The following tale is related in a forgotten nineteenth-century volume on the literature of the ancient world.  Its ultimate source is the Talmud (literally, “learning”), that immense compendium of Judaic civil and religious law, garnished with the diligent commentaries of hundreds of learned men.  To the foreigner unfamiliar with its mysteries, it appears to be a vast encyclopedia on every conceivable subject, including the minutiae of social life, work, family, and leisure.  Included also are fables, stories, allegories, proverbs, even jokes; the overall impression given is that of a distillation of cultural traditions and thought that spans many centuries.  The Talmud itself contains two parts:  the Mishna (the older text), and the Gemara, which is a commentary on the Mishna.

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The Genius Of The Iliad

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About a year and a half ago, I listened to an audio book translation of the Iliad.  I like listening to audio books in my car as I drive around during the day; I can control the content of what I hear, and can avoid listening to the news.  It had been a long time since I had had any extended exposure to the poem, and was wondering if it might mean more to me than it did many years ago.  The full appreciation of works of literature, we all know, is often time-specific.  At one point in a man’s life, a book may seem like a tiresome bore; then, with a refreshing interval of years, the same work can hit you like a bolt of lightning, activating previously dormant or attenuated perceptions.

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