The Cooing of the Dove and the Cawing of the Crow Late Abbasid Poetics in Abu Al-'Ala' Al-Ma'arri's Saqt Al-Zand and Luzum Ma La Yalzam - Brill Studies in Middle Eastern Literatures

In The Cooing of the Dove and the Cawing of the Crow Suzanne Pinckney Stetkevych offers original translations, close readings, and new interpretations of selected poems from the two contrasting diwans of the blind Late ?Abbasid master-poet, Abu al-?Ala? al-Ma?arri (d. 449 H./1057 C.E.). The first is Saqṭ al-Zand (Sparks of the Flint), the highly esteemed collection of qaṣidah poetry of his youth, which he later disavowed. The second is Luzum Ma La Yalzam (Requiring What Is Not Required), the programmatic double-rhymed collection from his later period of withdrawal and seclusion. She argues that the contrasting 'poetics of engagement' and 'poetics of disengagement' of the two diwans reflect the transition from High Classical to Post Classical aesthetics.