In Praise of Song: The Making of Courtly Culture in al-Andalus and Provence, 1005-1134 A.D.

by Cynthia Robinson

This volume offers a reconstruction of the court culture of the taifa kings of al-Andalus (11th century A.D.), using both visual and textual evidence. A focus of particular attention is the court of the Banū Hūd at Zaragoza, and that dynasty's palace, the Aljafería. Principle written sources are not histories and chronicles, but the untranslated poetic anthologies of al-ḥimyarī and al-Fatḥ ibn Khāqān.
The first part of the book addresses taifa visual and literary languages, with especial emphasis on connections between the literary and visual aspects of taifa aesthetics. The sections on the Aljafería's ornamental program will be of particular interest, not only to historians of Islamic art, but to students of all visual traditions with strong non-figural components.
In addition, Part One also proposes that taifa court culture has been considered as a culture of "courtly love," and this argument also forms the point of departure for Part Two. The second part of the study uses luxury objects of Islamic and Limousine production as a point of departure for a detailed comparison of the thematics of taifa poetry in classical Arabic on the themes of courtly love and pleasures with those of the better-known Provençal tradition.

446 pages, Hardcover

First published July 1, 2002

About the author

Cynthia Robinson is a writer and art historian based in Ithaca, New York. Her short fiction has been published by The Arkansas Review, Epoch, The Missouri Review, Slice, and others. She is Mary Donlon Alger Professor of Medieval and Islamic Art at Cornell University. Her debut novel, BIRDS OF WONDER, published on 20 February 2018, is a finalist in the fiction category for this year's CNY book awards, sponsored by the Writers' Center at the Syracuse YMCA. She is currently at work on another novel.


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Reviews

[Kathy Duffy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really fascinating reading but not light weight. I had to Inter-Library Loan it twice and I am still not all the way through it. I twas obviously someone's dissertation.