Abu Nuwas

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Abu Nuwas

Abu Nuwas ( Arabic أبو نواس, DMG Abū Nuwās ), also al-Hasan ibn Hani 'al-Hakami ad-Dimaschqi  /الحسن بن هانئ الحكمي الدمشقي / al-Ḥasan b. Hāniʾ al-Ḥakamī ad-Dimašqī (born 757 in Ahwaz ; died 815 ), is considered the first urban poet of Arabic literature and was court poet. In Swahili literature, his name is used for a fictional fool, to whom the same stories are sometimes ascribed as the Turkish Nasreddin Hodscha or the North African Juha .

Life

He lived at the time of the caliph Harun ar-Raschīd . In 1001 Nights Abu Nuwas is mentioned as the companion of the caliph. This epoch is considered to be the time of classical Arabic literature with the center Baghdad , at that time the capital of Arabia and Persia .

Abu Nuwas never met his father Hani. This was an Arab, his mother was a Persian weaver. In Basra and Kufa he studied with the greatest philologists of his time. To learn Bedouin Arabic, which was considered particularly pure, he is said to have spent a year in the desert.

This period is characterized literarily by the transition from the topoi of Bedouin poetry to a transfiguration and idealization of the same, often ironically, especially by urban poets. Abu Nuwas wrote wine, hunting and love poems, mostly in homoerotic form. Because of these seals he got into trouble more often; he was also imprisoned. In the last period of his life, Abu Nuwas turned from secular poetry to religion.

Abu Nuwas atone for one of his numerous mocking poems with his death: A noble Persian family had him so abused that he died of the consequences.

A crater with a diameter of 116 kilometers on Mercury has been named after the poet since 1976 (position: 17.4 ° N, 20.4 ° W).

Text examples

Wine and Koran

Pour me and pour Joseph
the delicious wine
that makes us shudder

Avoid the confusion in your life
and only take the peace pour

me to the brim
I don't like cups
that are only half full

The bottle on the table
and the book next to it

Drink three glasses
and quote a verse

The good has mixed with the bad
and -God may forgive me-

He will win by
overcoming the one: enough!

(translated from French)

The joys of Baghdad

Who, he says, do you want to go to Mecca?
I answer: Yes, when the joys
of Baghdad are over.
How am I supposed to go on a pilgrimage
while I'm drowned here
with the matchmaker or the landlord?

(translated from French)

literature

  • Heinrich Ludwig Kaster (translator, reteller): Abu Nawas or the art of lying. Piper library, Munich 1961.
  • Alfred von Kremer (ed.): Diwan des Abu Nuwas, the greatest lyrical poet of the Arabs. Braumüller, Vienna 1855; archive.org , urn : nbn: de: bvb: 12-bsb10249208-4 ; again: Beirut 1982 (ed. and coming from AAM al-Ghazali, udT Divan ).
  • Philip F. Kennedy: Abu Nuwas. A genius of poetry. Oneworld Publications, Oxford 2005.
  • Wolfhart Heinrichs, Gregor Schöler (Ed.): Festschrift Ewald Wagner for his 65th birthday. Volume 2: Studies on Arabic poetry (= Beirut texts and studies. Volume 54). Franz Steiner, Stuttgart 1994. Therein:
    • Julie Scott Meisami: Abu Nuwas and the Rhetoric of Parody. Pp. 246-257.
    • Philip F. Kennedy: Perspectives of a Khamriyya - Abu Nuwas' Ya Sahir al-Tarf. Pp. 258-276.
    • Vincent Mansour Monteil: Abu Nuwas: Quintets du vin. Pp. 277-282.
  • Philip F. Kennedy: The Wine Song in Classical Arabic Poetry. Abu Nuwas and the Literary Tradition. Clarendon Press, Oxford 1997.
  • Ewald Wagner : The tradition of Abū Nuwās-Dīwān and his manuscripts (= treatises of the humanities and social science class of the Academy of Sciences and Literature in Mainz. Born 1957, No. 6).
  • Ewald Wagner: Abu Nuwas. A Study of the Arabic Literature of the Early Abbasid Period. Franz Steiner, Wiesbaden 1965.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Abu Nuwas
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Abū Nuwās al Ḥasan b. Hāni 'al Ḥakamī
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Arab poet
DATE OF BIRTH 757
PLACE OF BIRTH Ahwaz
DATE OF DEATH 815