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Article: Arabic Literature: an Overview.(Book Review)
- Article from:
- Middle Eastern Studies
- Article date:
- July 1, 2003
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 Frank Cass & Company Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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by Pierre Cachia. London: Routledge, 2002. Pp.xiv + 194 index. 45.00 [pounds sterling] (cloth). ISBN 0-7007-1725-0.
Older surveys of Arabic literature in the English language have tended to be coloured by their authors' immersion at school and university in Latin and Greek. For example, in A Literary History of the Arabs (1907), R.A. Nicholson, who started out as a classicist, compared various Arab authors with Horace, Lucian, Suetonius and Herodotus. Abu Muslim's westward advance against the Umayyads was compared to Caesar's crossing of the Rubicon and the Battle of Badr to that of Marathon. As for Gustav von Grunebaum, his various studies of Arabic literature ...