This talk shows how the Arabic poem becomes a manifestation of multilingualism and translation in the work of such contemporary Arab prose poets as Nazim al-Sayyid from Lebanon, Samir Abu Hawwash of Lebanese and Palestinian origins and Julan Haji of Syrian and Kurdish origins.

For this generation of poets, the launching is a point of traffic between languages. Even if some of them only speak and write in Arabic, it remains a language infiltrated by other languages. It is the Arabic of the information age, of texting and chatting, of emails, of bilingual and multilingual speakers/

Arabic poetry is the earliest form of Arabic literature. Present knowledge of poetry in Arabic dates from the 6th century, but oral poetry is believed to predate that. Researchers and critics of Arabic poetry usually classify it in two categories: classical and modern poetry. Classical poetry was written before the Arabic renaissance. Modern poetry, on the other hand, deviated from classical poetry in its content, style, structure, rhyme and topics.

Event Speaker:

Huda J. Fakhreddine, Assistant Professor of Arabic Literature, The Middle East Center at the University of Pennsylvania