Classical Arabic II [ LGLOR2661 ]

Two years of Classical and/or Modern Standard Arabic.
 

This course deals with Arabic artistic literature, namely, poetry and literary prose belonging to the Classical period (mostly 7th to 15th centuries, with some attention to more recent continuations of the relevant literary genres). Themes will be defined in relation to their importance and their authors' fame, to recent trends in research, and, where applicable, to the students' preferences. Texts will be read and analyzed from grammatical, philological and contextual viewpoints, and as a rule, relevant studies will be taken into account. Please note: this course will be offered in alternating years. It complements GLOR 2662, which deals with non-literary prose (scientific texts, biographies, encyclopaedias, historical and geographical literature, folk tales).

At the end of the course, the student should have acquired :
- thorough familiarity with Classical Arabic grammar ;
- basic knowledge of Arabic prosody, and more particularly of the metrics of poetry, and of rhymed prose ;
- the ability to independantly read, understand and translate the major works of Arabic artistic literature ;
- the heuristic skill of using the main instruments for the study of Classical Arabic grammar and literature : grammars, encyclopaedias, bibliographies, monographs and articles, web-based resources ;
- the know-how to carry out individual research within the field of Classical Arabic poetry or literary prose ;
- the communication skills required to orally present the findings of a small-scale research project on a relevant Arabic literary text.