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Khamriyya

as a World Poetic Genre

Comparative Perspectives on Wine Poetry in Near and Middle Eastern Literatures

Khamriyya

as a World Poetic Genre

Comparative Perspectives on Wine Poetry in Near and Middle Eastern Literatures

Main Objectives 

The project is a collaborative initiative of the School of Modern Languages at the University of St Andrews and the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Cambridge. It aims at exploring the history of wine poetry in various Near and Middle Eastern literatures from its origins in the sixth century up until the early modern period.

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Khamriyya represents along with ghazal a major form of poetic expression in various literary traditions including Arabic, Persian, Hebrew, Syriac, Ethiopian, Armenian, Georgian and Ottoman Turkish. Historical diversity and aesthetic versatility of khamriyya defined its development over many centuries in different cultural, religious and social contexts. In order to reveal the richness and importance of khamriyya as a world poetic genre, the initiative applies a comparative approach, which helps understand the transformations of the genre throughout different periods of literary history and across diverse cultural and linguistic milieus.

Publication

“Passed around by a Crescent”
Wine Poetry in the Literary Traditions of the Islamic World
Edited by Kirill Dmitriev & Christine van Ruymbeke / ERGON 2022 – Published by the Orient-Institut Beirut

Download the PDF here
https://opendata.uni-halle.de//handle/1981185920/83824

doi.org/10.5771/9783956509094

Agenda

The initiative was conducted in 2014–2017 in form of lecture series, research workshops in St Andrews and Cambridge, and a conference in Beirut. The proceedings have been published in the series Beiruter Texte und Studien (Ergon, BTS 142).

The initiative was supported by the  ERC Starting Grant within the project ‘Language, Philology, Culture: Arab Cultural Semantics in Transition’ (https://arts.st-andrews.ac.uk/arsem/), the Honeyman Foundation (St Andrews) and various research funding at FAMES (Cambridge).

Workshops

Workshop 1 / St. Andrews / 2014

Workshop 2 / Cambrigde / 2016

Conference / Beirut / 2017

Lectures

Mystical Wine – the Khamriyya of Ibn al-Fāriḍ

The Impact of Abū Nuwās on Arabic and Hebrew Andalusian Poetry

The Wine-Drinking Party in Medieval Hebrew Poetry

Wine Poetry in the Ottoman Context

On (not) drinking:  al-Hariri’s Maqamah No. 48

Conveners

Kirill Dmitriev
Senior Lecturer in Arabic
School of Modern Languages
University of St Andrews
Buchanan Building, Union Street
St Andrews, Fife, KY16 9PH
Scotland, United Kingdom
Christine van Ruymbeke
Soudavar Professor of Persian Literature and Culture
Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies
Graduate Tutor and College Praelector of Darwin College
University of Cambridge
Sidgwick Avenue,
Cambridge CB3 9DA U.K.

The University of St Andrews is a charity registered in Scotland, No SC013532.