Identification and Identity in Classical Arab Poetry

In early Arabic poetry, poets mostly speak in the first person – a point which sets their tradition apart from most other civilisations. This study investigates the characteristic poetic roles found in the works of thirty seven poets dating from the pre-Islamic to the Abbasid period, to which are added specimens of Spanish Arabic lyric poetry and the popular poetry of Baghdad.

M. C. Lyons is Emeritus Sir Thomas Adams's Professor of Arabic Literature and Fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge. Professor Lyons is the founding editor of the Journal of Arabic Literature and author, editor and translator of several books, the most significant being the three-volume The Arabian Epic (CUP, 1995) and the three-volume edition of The Arabian Nights (Penguin Books, 2008).