Arabic literature has a distinguished tradition of bacchanals but
none are so consistently entertaining, explicit or iconoclastic as
those of Abu Nuwas al-Hasan ibn Hani al-Hakami (c. 756-c. 815), the
bad boy of Abbasid poetry.
One of the greatest of Arabic poets -- indeed, the greatest in
the opinion of some critics -- Abu Nuwas wrote accomplished verse
that demonstrated his technical mastery of all the major genres.
However, his poems on wine (khamriyyat), homosexual love
(mudhakkarat) and ribaldry (majouniyyat) are his best known and
have earned him his notoriety. These poems often landed him in
trouble and prison during his lifetime and, even today, are still
subject to censorship by the guardians of public morality. As his
talent makes him difficult to ignore, he is frequently subject to
misrepresentation.
Abu Nuwas' poetry is characterised by an astonishing lack of
inhibition and one of the most attractive features of his diwan is
the extent to which his verse reveals its author's personality.
What emerges is a likeable, if rather louche, character with an
outrageous sense of humour, sharp wit, unaccompanied by malice, and
considerable sensibility who let no convention save, on occasion,
the order of the caliph, restrain him in his pursuit of life's
sensual pleasures.
In his khamriyyat, Abu Nuwas offers a glimpse of the hedonistic
and dissipated world he inhabited: the world of Baghdad high
society at the zenith of the Abbasid caliphate. Yet there is also a
modern and up-to-date feel about his poetry that makes it ideal for
presentation to an English-speaking readership, some twelve
centuries after his death.
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