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The men and women poets of Al-Andalus
February 12, 20257:00 p.m.
CORDOBA
Casa Árabe Auditorium (at Calle Samuel de los Santos Gener, 9).
7:00 p.m.
Free entry until the event’s capacity is reached.
In Spanish.
On Wednesday, February 12, Casa Árabe will be hosting a new session in the event series “The Arabs and Their Poetry: A journey across the centuries,” given by Pedro Buendía. Come join us and meet the creators of one of the longest, most select poetry traditions in world literature.
The poetry of Al-Andalus is exceptional for various historical and literary reasons. For a lengthy period lasting more than five centuries, it meant the existence, right in the middle of European territory, of a non-Latin, non-Indo-European literature which was already fully developed when Romance literatures were still in just a nascent, uncertain phase. It also implied the culmination of one of the longest-standing, most select poetry traditions in world literature, born in Arabia around the seventh century and developed in the eastern lands of the Umayyad and
Abbasid Empires. The poetry of Al-Andalus imported the classical Middle Eastern Arab poetic models into the Iberian Peninsular territory, developing them in its own way while offering poets of the stature of Almutamid of Seville, Ibn Jafaya or Ibn Zaydún to both European and worldwide literary history. Along with this, it offered highly exceptional features cultivated notably by women, as well as introducing its own and new genres of the strophic poetry in the Arabic poetic tradition, in the form of “moaxajas” and “zéjeles.”
Pedro Buendía
Holder of a PhD in Arabic Philology from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and a full professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at the Universidad Complutense, where he is currently director of the journal Anaquel de Estudios Árabes, Buendía has taught at the Universities of Cairo and Salamanca, as well as El Colegio de México. Specializing in medieval Arabic literature, he has authored numerous publications on history, literature and symbolism in pre-modern Arab societies, as well as translations of notable classical Arabic works. He was recently given the distinction of the Sheikh Hamad Award for Translation and International Understanding (Doha, Qatar, 2023) for his translation of al-Jahiz’s Book of the Quadrature of the Circle into Spanish (Madrid, Alianza, 2021).
Abbasid Empires. The poetry of Al-Andalus imported the classical Middle Eastern Arab poetic models into the Iberian Peninsular territory, developing them in its own way while offering poets of the stature of Almutamid of Seville, Ibn Jafaya or Ibn Zaydún to both European and worldwide literary history. Along with this, it offered highly exceptional features cultivated notably by women, as well as introducing its own and new genres of the strophic poetry in the Arabic poetic tradition, in the form of “moaxajas” and “zéjeles.”
Pedro Buendía
Holder of a PhD in Arabic Philology from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and a full professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at the Universidad Complutense, where he is currently director of the journal Anaquel de Estudios Árabes, Buendía has taught at the Universities of Cairo and Salamanca, as well as El Colegio de México. Specializing in medieval Arabic literature, he has authored numerous publications on history, literature and symbolism in pre-modern Arab societies, as well as translations of notable classical Arabic works. He was recently given the distinction of the Sheikh Hamad Award for Translation and International Understanding (Doha, Qatar, 2023) for his translation of al-Jahiz’s Book of the Quadrature of the Circle into Spanish (Madrid, Alianza, 2021).