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A Hairy State of Mind: Creativity in the Arabic Literary Imaginary

A Hairy State of Mind: Creativity in the Arabic Literary Imaginary What is the body language of creativity? Hair, it is argued in this paper, plays a key role in the body language of creativity. The discussion of the ways in which pre-modern Arabic writings visualize the body in action at moments of creativity will be anchored in Kitāb al-aghānī’s description of Jarīr on the night he composed one of his most famous satires. Through this, hair is explored as a semiotic code that inheres the tension between grammar and ungrammaticality, reason and madness, imitation and originality in literary works, and relate this tension to the inexorable connection between poetry and madness in the Arabic literary imaginary. Poetic inspiration in pre-modern Arabic writings, it will be shown, is often portrayed as madness or magic, with the poet as madman or magician, and they quite often share the same body language. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Al-Masaq: Journal of the Medieval Mediterranean Taylor & Francis

A Hairy State of Mind: Creativity in the Arabic Literary Imaginary

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A Hairy State of Mind: Creativity in the Arabic Literary Imaginary

Abstract

What is the body language of creativity? Hair, it is argued in this paper, plays a key role in the body language of creativity. The discussion of the ways in which pre-modern Arabic writings visualize the body in action at moments of creativity will be anchored in Kitāb al-aghānī’s description of Jarīr on the night he composed one of his most famous satires. Through this, hair is explored as a semiotic code that inheres the tension between grammar and...
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Publisher
Taylor & Francis
Copyright
© 2018 Society for the Medieval Mediterranean
ISSN
1473-348X
eISSN
0950-3110
DOI
10.1080/09503110.2018.1430456
Publisher site
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Abstract

What is the body language of creativity? Hair, it is argued in this paper, plays a key role in the body language of creativity. The discussion of the ways in which pre-modern Arabic writings visualize the body in action at moments of creativity will be anchored in Kitāb al-aghānī’s description of Jarīr on the night he composed one of his most famous satires. Through this, hair is explored as a semiotic code that inheres the tension between grammar and ungrammaticality, reason and madness, imitation and originality in literary works, and relate this tension to the inexorable connection between poetry and madness in the Arabic literary imaginary. Poetic inspiration in pre-modern Arabic writings, it will be shown, is often portrayed as madness or magic, with the poet as madman or magician, and they quite often share the same body language.

Journal

Al-Masaq: Journal of the Medieval Mediterranean – Taylor & Francis

Published: Jan 2, 2018

Keywords: Jarīr; al-Farazdaq; Ibn al-Jawzī; hair; creativity; madness; poetry; grammar; ungrammaticality

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