Islam, Nationalism, and 1000 Years of European Poetry

From The Song of Roland to The Highland Lute

David Aberbach

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2025
• eBook ISBN: 9781040394328
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism in Poetry
• Index: Literature

Islam, Nationalism, and 1000 Years of European Poetry considers the long history of Islam and European poetry and its central importance in the development of European culture.

David Aberbach offers a panoramic history of European poetry as it was affected by the centuries-long conflict between Islam and Christianity, from the early-medieval Old French chanson de geste, The Song of Roland, set against the Muslim invasion of France in the eighth century, to Fishta's The Highland Lute, the early-twentieth-century Albanian epic of the struggle for independence from Ottoman rule, achieved in 1912. Aberbach surveys some of the outstanding poetry set against Islamic conquests and domination, particularly in Spain and the Balkans. The book includes detailed comparisons between medieval and modern Arabic and Hebrew poetry, closely linked in technique and subject matter, but moving apart after 1789. A result of constant religious warfare in Europe was disillusionment with religion, increasing focus on humanistic concerns, and the evolution of a secular State separate from religion.

This captivating history of Islam and European poetry will be of great interest to any scholars of nationalism, Jewish and Islamic Studies, history, comparative literature, and cultural studies.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword by Oliver Leaman
• Acknowledgements
• Chronological table: Islam and European poetry
• Introduction
• 1 Islam and European national poetry: Conflict and creativity
• 2 The Reconquista and Spanish Hebrew poetry
• 3 Seventeenth-century English poetry: The homiletic separation of Church and State
• 4 National poetry and Russian-Ottoman Imperial conflict, 1789–1914
• 5 The Greek War of Independence and its poetry
• 6 European Hebrew and Arabic Poetry: The parting of the ways 1789–1939
• Bibliography
• Index