Al-Andalus was home to three forms of stanzaic poetry: the musammaṭ (classical); the muwaššaḥ (classical, with colloquial and about 6 per cent Romance in final verses) and the zajal (colloquial with a smattering of Romance vocabulary). By common consent, the Cordoban Ibn Quzmān (d. 1160 ad) is the greatest composer of zajals.
James Monroe has been thinking and writing about Ibn Quzmān's poetry for more than fifty years, and it is good to have this magnum opus that presents the kernel of his work to us.
The first volume includes all the surviving poetic pieces by Ibn Quzmān, almost all of them zajals, edited in a transliteration, with an English (prose) translation on the facing page, plus notes and comments. Monroe hopes “that the form the text exhibits may be of some interest to Romanists, most of whom are unable to read that same Arabic script, whereas, in contrast, Arabists should have no problem reading the text in transliteration”. It is a view that will not be shared by Arab readers, whether Romance is involved or not. To give one example, in 102:5:2 Monroe reads wa-l-la mā naḥtāj al-ġulām VIVO, which he translates as “Indeed, I have no use for a live slave-boy”. There is a textual note that in the manuscript the last word in the line is baybu and a further note that this is the Romance vivo; but unless the Arab reader is sharp, Monroe's initial cluster is baffling, and his translation indeed hardly points the way to the manuscript's wa-llāhi.
The second volume comprises sixteen chapters devoted to analysing specific poems, mainly, though not exclusively, from a literary perspective. There is some new material here, but most chapters are revised versions of essays that have been printed before in a range of publications. It is extremely useful that they are now all together.
In my view the work gets off to a false start or, rather, no start at all. The introduction must set a record in ultra-conciseness. It runs to a mere 12 pages, including some quite lengthy footnotes. Contrast that with a bibliography of 42 pages and an index (for both volumes) of 21 pages and a total length of over 1,500 pages. Such brevity requires the reader to have wide knowledge of considerable fields of study and excellent library access. Surely, for example, there should be a bit more about the poet himself, rather than a reference to Georges Colin's article “Ibn Quzmān” in EI 2.
The brevity also precludes any reasoned discussion of topics of serious scholarly dispute, not least the origins of Andalusian stanzaic poetry. Focusing on the muwaššaḥ, Arabic sources put the beginnings of stanzaic poetry at about 900 ad, with the zajal somewhat later. The earliest extant poems are about 150 years later, and so effectively the early history of such poetry is lost.
Monroe disagrees. He believes that the zajal was the first genre to evolve, from which the muwaššaḥ then sprang. However, he does not print here the arguments that he has made elsewhere. His ideas are worth consideration, but they remain hypotheses. As they provide a basis for the whole of the book, they should be re-stated at the outset.
There are also great difficulties about the metrical systems involved. Monroe opts for a dual system that takes in both Romance and Arabic scansion, with the Romance as the base element. Again the alternative, with Arabic as the base element, ought at least to be sketched out, well beyond the half paragraph dealing with Federico Corriente's theories.
Another topic where the reader needs further enlightenment is the language used by Ibn Quzmān. Monroe is content to use “colloquial” and “vernacular” as terms of art to describe it, as has been common from the time of Ibn Saʿīd (d. 1276) onwards. However, it is generally recognized that a classicizing element is brought into play whenever it suits the poet. The non-specialist needs a section on dialect features here – otherwise other works, e.g. by Corriente, have to be used.
Monroe's description of the unique manuscript of Ibn Quzmān's Dīwān is terse: “a single copy … has survived. It was made in Safad, Palestine, around a century after our poet's death, and is written in the Eastern Arabic script”. He might fairly have added “by an incompetent scribe with no understanding of Andalusian material”, for therein lie innumerable problems.
An expanded introduction and a text in Arabic script would need another volume, though I am sure that Monroe has to hand a text in Arabic script and other material needed.
Given the caveats about the transliteration, the text is usable, which is no mean feat with just a single manuscript available for most of the surviving material. The apparatus is not so, merely spelling out phrases that have been corrected without naming the editor responsible for the correction. Inevitably some cruxes are passed over, but I was disappointed to see no reference to the emendations of that pillar of SOAS, Jareer Abu-Haidar, Hispano-Arabic Literature and the Early Provencal Lyrics (London: Curzon Press, 2001, ch. 3).
When we turn to the translation, we find what Monroe really has to offer. It seems to me remarkably well-judged, and it is the first translation to retain something of the feel of Ibn Quzmān's ways of expression. Even when one thinks that Monroe may not have dealt with a crux, or made an error, a second look makes one realize that the flavour of the original is being projected.
The essays in volume 2 are the work of a thoughtful literary critic, able to draw on wide reading. Monroe is thus able to edify his readers and make them think hard on a wide range of topics in a cornucopia that recalls the sprightliness of Jāḥiẓ. There are some errors, often due to his sources. Monroe is interested in the Latin natura as a precursor of the Arabic ṭabīʿa. However, the comment (p. 1312) that “This is a neuter-plural word from the verb nascor” is misleading philological prehistory. In surviving Latin it is a feminine singular noun, as can be seen in the title of Lucretius’ epic De rerum natura. However, such minor blemishes should not distract us from the value of the insights into Ibn Quzmān's unique poetry.
