When Muslim invaders conquered Sicily in the ninth century, they took control of a weakened Greek state in cultural decadence. When, two centuries later, the Normans seized control of the island, they found a Muslim state just entering its cultural prime. Rather than replace the practices and idioms of the vanquished people with their own, the Normans in Sicily adopted and adapted the Greco-Arabic culture that had developed on the island. Yet less than a hundred years later, the cultural and linguistic mix had been reduced, a Romance tradition had come to dominate, and Sicilian poets composed the first body of love lyrics in an Italianate vernacular.
Karla Mallette has written the first literary history of the Kingdom of Sicily in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Where other scholars have separated out the island’s literature along linguistic grounds, Mallette surveys the literary production in Arabic, Latin, Greek, and Romance dialects, in addition to the architectural remains, numismatic inscriptions, and diplomatic records, to argue for a multilingual, multicultural, and coherent literary tradition.
Drawing on postcolonial theory to consider institutional and intellectual power, the exchange of knowledge across cultural boundaries, and the containment and celebration of the other that accompanies cultural transition, the book includes an extensive selection of poems and documents translated from the Arabic, Latin, Old French, and Italian. The Kingdom of Sicily, 1100-1250 opens up new venues for understanding the complexity of a place and culture at the crossroads of East and West, Islam and Christianity, tradition and innovation.
Table of Content
1. Toward a Literary History of the Kingdom of Sicily
2. An Archeology of the Sicilian Park
3. Frederick II and the Genesis of a Sicilian Romance Culture
4. Rereading Le Origini: Sicilian Romance Poetry and the Language of Natural Philosophy
5. Beyond Le Origini: Sicilian Romance Poetry in a Feminine Voice
6. Vernacularity and Sicilian Culture
TEXTS IN TRANSLATION
From the Arabic
Ibn Hamdis
‘In youth, the soul attains its desire’ (from the Siqilliyyat)
‘Because of long-lasting grief ‘ (from the Siqilliyyat)
‘Oh, garden of love’
‘You tortured me with the two elements’
Abu Musa
‘Oh, blonde tribe, my blood is on your hands’
‘My tears expose my love’
Al-Atrabanishi, ‘Oh, Favara of the two seas!’
Al-Buthayri and Ibn Bashrun, ‘Pass round the golden carnelian-red [wine]’
Abu al-Daw’, ‘The radiant moon has been extinguished’
Abu Hafs, ‘He sought solace’
Introduction to al-Idrisi’s Geography
The Travels of Ibn Jubayr
The Daughter of Ibn ‘Abbad and Frederick II
From the Latin
Henricus Aristippus’s Preface to His Translation of Plato’s Phaedo, ca. 1156
Preface to a Translation of Ptolemy’s Almagest by an Unknown Translator, ca. 1160
‘Hugo Falcandus’ on the Death of William and the Arrival of the Germans
Peter of Eboli, Lament on the Death of William II
Frederick II, Hunting with Birds
Frederick II and Lucera
Innocent IV Excommunicates Frederick
The Destruction of Lucera
From the Old French
Introduction to the Book of Sydrac
From the Sicilian
Giacomo da Lentini
‘Maravigliosamente’
‘Amor non vole’
‘Or come pote sí gran donna intrare’
‘A l’aire claro ò vista ploggia dare’
Frederick II, ‘Dolze meo drudo’
Mazzeo di Ricco, ‘Sei anni ò travagliato’
Rinaldo d’Aquino, ‘Già mai non mi conforto’
Guido delle Colonne, ‘Ancor che l’aigua per lo foco lassi’
Anonymous, ‘Oi lassa ‘namorata’
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgments
About the author
Karla Mallette is Associate Professor of Italian and Near Eastern Studies at the University of Michigan.
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