Ibn Yunus in the early part of the tenth century translated Aristotle's Poetics into Arabic and the Europeans learned of Aristotle's work from the Arabs several
centuries later. But the best Arabic works on the art of poetry had, however, already been produced, presenting original ideas gleaned from the study of the great Arabian poets, and illustrated by examples from them. The Arabic critics did not go to the Greek and Roman poems (which they considered cold besides their own) as did the Italians and English to study the nature of poetry. The Arabs studied Greek science, medicine, and philosophy, but not Greek poetry. Books on prosody and poetry appeared after the founding of the system of Arabic meters by Khalil b. Ahmad in the eighth century. There were also the two celebrated schools of grammarians at Basra and Kufa, soon to merge in the school of Bagdad. Never before had the art of poetry and criticism flourished so thrivingly and displayed a so generally high order as among the Arabs in the ninth, tenth, eleventh and twelfth centuries. A faint idea of the great number of Arabian grammarians, critics and poets may be gleaned by perusing the biographical dictionary of Ibn Khallikan, who flourished in the thirteenth century. This work, which contains only a partial list, has been compared to the Life of Johnson, by Boswell (Lucas called him a Bagdad Boswell), and to Plutarch's Lives.
While Europe was plunged in ignorance and barbarism, the great Arab poets and critics were achieving work that belongs to the best; but alas, the very names which rank so high among them are unknown to most people. We let them slumber in the difficult Arabic. We translate the Chinese and Japanese poems probably more out of faddish reasons than of a true love of their poetry, but we ignore the Arabians.
The Arab example contradicts the famous platitude that great epochs of creative literary work are not ages of literary criticism. It is just the reverse. Good criticism
is never so conspicuous as in ages of poetry, for there is such interest in poetry as to provoke literary discussion, then more so than ever. The best criticism of poetry appeared in England in the great age of Wordsworth and Byron. The Arabic grammarians and anthologists began their work about the middle of the eighth century. Incredible stories are told of their feats of memory for verse, in the art of improvisation, in skill in manipulating the language. They regarded the letters of their alphabet as human beings, just as the Hebrew Cabbalists treated their alphabetical letters as angels.
To name even the most important of grammarians, anthologists, philologists, critics of Arabia, is to call a long list. Even historians, philosophers, scientists and theologians entered the field of poetic criticism. Every one quoted the poets, consequently poetry was bound up not only with criticism but with Arabic thought. One of the most quoted Arabic critics is Ibn Rashiq, of the eleventh century, whose Umda or Pillar of the Art of Poetry is mentioned often by Ibn Khaldun, the historian. The latter also names four great Arabic writers of Adab, Ibn Qutayba's Accomplishments of the Secretary (Ibn Qutayba's Book of Poetry and Poets is more often cited by other writers than the Accomplishments of the Secretary), Jahiz's Book of Eloquence and Exposition, al Mubarrad's Perfect, all of the ninth century, and in Spain Abu Ali al Qali's Curious Notions, of the tenth century, whose Book of Dictations, however, is better known.
Among the writers on poetry in the manner of the Arabs was the Hebrew poet and critic, Moses Ibn Ezra, author of the Conversations and Recollections, which was the first study of the kind in Hebrew and the first criticism of the poetry of the Bible from an aesthetic point of view. Among Arab critics to whom he is indebted,
besides the aforementioned Ibn Qutayba and Ibn Rashiq, are the first book in Arabian Poetics proper, by the Caliph, Ibn ul Mutazz, of the latter part of the ninth century, a work by Qudama, and Ornaments of Conversation, by Al Hatimi, both of the tenth century.
There are many other works that were well known and often cited in Arabic literary circles. I shall name only Tha'alibi (died 1037), whose Solitaire of Time had many continuations by later critics, and the famous Fihrist or Index by the Bookseller, Ibn Ishaq (tenth century), one of the sections of which deal with poetry.
Ibn Khaldun, the historian, and a contemporary of Chaucer in the thirteenth century, devoted a number of chapters to poetry in the introduction to his famous history.