Arabic Love Poetry from the Desert

Book excerpt: The main body of the present book is a presentation of 62 Arabic poems in the original from the 7th century of the work of Qays b. al-Mulawwah (d. 688), also known as Majnun Leyla "the one who was mad about Leyla." Each Arabic poem has an English translation on the facing page. The English text has footnotes referring to comments that are placed at the end of the work. The poems tell the story of Qays' love to his cousin, Leyla bint Mahd y (d. 688), better known as Leyla al-Amir ya, and provide insights into themes that were prevalent in the ashar al-ghazal al-udhr "platonic or virginal love poems" during the Ummayad era and onwards. A consuming passion emerges from the versions that have inspired countless of people more than 1200 years ago and throughout the centuries. About the Author: Joyce Akesson has studied the Semitic languages at Lund's University, Sweden and has previously been a lecturer there during many years. She is the author of several books about foreign linguistics, among which "Causes and Principles in Arabic," "Arabic Proverbs and Wise Sayings," "A Study of Arabic Phonology," "The Basics & Intricacies of Arabic Morphology," "The Phonological Changes due to the Hamza and Weak Consonant in Arabic," "A Study of the Assimilation and Substitution in Arabic," "The Essentials of the Class of the Strong Verb in Arabic," "The Complexity of the Irregular Verbal and Nominal Forms & the Phonological Changes in Arabic," "Arabic Morphology and Phonology based on the Marah" and "Ahmad b. Ali b. Masud on Arabic Morphology, Part One: The Strong Verb." She has also published several articles about Arabic linguistics in two Journals, the Journal of Arabic Linguistics (the ZAL or Zeitschrift fur Arabische Linguistik) Wiesbaden, and the previous Acta Orientalia, Denmark. She has also written a lemma about sarf "morphology/phonology in the Encyclopaedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics, vol. 4. Leiden: Brill, 20. She is also the author of three books of poems "Love's Thrilling Dimensions," "The Invitation" and "Majnun Leyla: Poems about Passion."