The Mantle Odes

"Also author of The Poetics of Islamic Legitimacy (2002) and The Mute Immortals Speak (1993), Stetkevych (Indiana Univ.) provides an original translation and careful analysis of three landmark poems in Arabic Islamic literature: Ka'b ibn Zuhayr's "Su'ad Has Departed" (presented to the prophet in his life), Al-Busiri's "Mantle Ode" (13th century), and Ahmad Shawqi's "The Way of the Mantle" (early 20th century). The author argues that these are essentially praise poems with similar structural elements. They are addressed to the prophet in exchange for a gift, and the nature of this gift varies according to the poem's cultural and historical circumstances. Each of the book's three chapters presents a comprehensive and compelling line-by-line analysis of its subject poem. The book also includes an appendix of Arabic texts. Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students, researchers/faculty. — Choice"—S. Gomaa, Salve Regina University, Jan. 2011

"[T]he reader can learn much from Stetkevych's study . . . ."—Speculum

"Stetkevych provides an original translation and careful analysis of three landmark poems in Arabic Islamic literature . . . Recommended."—Choice

"A great achievement in literary theory and Islamic thought and a significant contribution to Arabic literature."—Muhsin al-Musawi, author of Reading Iraq: Culture and Power in Conflict

"A work of scholarship at the highest level, critically groundbreaking, textually grounded, elegantly argued, and of a depth and breadth that is rare in any field."—Michael Sells, author of Desert Tracings: Six Classic Arabian Odes