The Case of Rhyme versus Reason

The poetry of the extremely prolific and versatile ‘Abbasid poet Ibn al-Rumi is examined in this book. Part 1, The Poet, reconstructs the poet’s life and times providing the background for Part II, The Poetry, which traces the influences in Ibn al-Rumi’s distinctive poetic style and themes. This provides a glimpse into a rather fluid period in Arabic literary history when the boundary between poetry and prose was becoming increasingly permeable, due to the emergence of the so-called “secretary-p