The Arabic Role in Medieval Literary History: A Forgotten Heritage (The Middle Ages Series)

Arabic culture was a central and shaping phenomenon in medieval Europe, yet its influence on medieval literature has been ignored or marginalized for the last two centuries. In this ground-breaking book, now returned to print with a new afterword by the author, María Rosa Menocal argues that major modifications of the medieval canon and its literary history are necessary. Menocal reviews the Arabic cultural presence in a variety of key settings, including the courts of William of Aquitaine and Frederick II, the universities in London, Paris, and Bologna, and Cluny under Peter the Venerable, and she examines how our perception of specific texts including the courtly love lyric and the works of Dante and Boccaccio would be altered by an acknowledgment of the Arabic cultural component. Cover 1 Contents 8 Preface 10 CHAPTER ONE: The Myth of Westernness in Medieval Literary Historiography 20 CHAPTER TWO: Rethinking the Background 46 CHAPTER THREE: The Oldest Issue: Courtly Love 90 CHAPTER FOUR: The Newest "Discovery": The Muwashshahāt 110 CHAPTER FIVE: Italy, Dante, and the Anxieties of Influence 134 CHAPTER SIX: Other Readers, Other Readings 156 AFTERWORD 174 Bibliography 180 Index 198 A 198 B 198 C 199 D 199 E 200 F 200 G 200 H 200 I 200 J 201 K 201 L 201 M 201 N 202 O 202 P 202 Q 202 R 202 S 202 T 203 V 203 W 203 Z 203 Modern civilization's myriad pretensions to objectivity have unfortunately tended to obscure the fact that much of our writing of history is as much a myth-making activity as that of more primitive societies.