In-Class ORAL Presentation Assignment
on IBN’ ARABI POEM
This is for an oral presentation and those are things that we need to talk about in the presentation.
1)Contextualize the material.Who wrote it? Where in the world are they from, and when? What do we need to know about the circumstances and society of the moment it was produced? 2)Summarize the material.Quite literally: what happens in this text?
3)Present its main thematic ideas and/or arguments. What is the purpose of this text? What is the significance of this work?
4)Identify a few key passages. Show us some significant moments in the text! Tell us about the language. Are these moments ironic, sincere, powerful, bewildering? Close-read them for us—tell us what the author is doing in these moments.
5)Provide a few questions for class discussion.This is the most important part of your presentation:you are to provide us a set of questions to kick-start conversation. That is, your job isnotto be an expert who knows every single thing about the text you select. Instead, your job is to highlight interesting moments, confusing moments, productive moments in the text that the class might want to chew over, to think about. You are framing a conversation.
I have attached the poem( it is 3 pages)IBN ‘ARABI he greatest poet of medieval al- Andalus, 1bn ‘Arabi (1165-1240) was also one of its greatest philoso- phers—bested only by his countryman Averroés (Ibn Rushd), whose commen- tary on Aristotle transformed the his- tory of thought in the West. Born in Murcia (in modern Spain), Ibn ‘Arabi received the standard education in grammar and rhetoric appropriate to a son of a minor court official, without any specifically religious education. After a conversion experience in his early teens, however, Ibn ‘Arab; devoted himself fully to his lifelong task: the integration of philosophy and theology through the medium of mystical devo- tion. This goal is evident in his poetry's language of passionate desire directed toward the ‘divine: the lover seeks at once to possess the beloved completely and to be annihilated by the beloved, losing track of the self in the experi- ence of the other. Gentle Now, Doves! Gentle now, doves of the thornberry and moringa? thicket, don’t add to my heartache your sighs. Gentle now, or your sad cooing will reveal the love I hide, the sorrow I hide away. I echo back, in the evening, in the morning, echo, the longing of a love-sick lover, the moaning of the lost. Che TEER CS 342 | MEDIEVAL LYR breaking of t F WwW and other Be 1 me 5 putting nn Jam, for me in J : Who is there fi ie Mino, wn and the Stoning mn) ns who for me at Tamarisk Grove; ‘ ring i mans or at the way-stafion of Na Hour by hour they circle my heart in rapture, in love-ache, : and touch my pillars with a kiss. As the best of creation circled the Ké‘ba,’ a" which reason with its proofs called unworthy. He kissed the stones there— and he was entrusted with the word! What is the house of stone 9 compared to a man or woman? They swore, how often! they'd never change—piling up VOws. She who dyes herself red with henna is faithless. ; A white-blazed gazelle is an amazing sight, red-dye signaling, eyelids hinting, Pasture between }, and innards, Marvel, @ garden among the flames! reastbone é My heart can ta)e on any form: for gazelles 5 a cloister for 3) Meadow, monks, 3. A kind of tamarisk often featyr, di Arabic love poetry. ed In early leadip t . 4 foc 4. All sites along the Muslim pi] £10 the shrine of the Ka'aba at M¢ dr i . : hn Lo grimage roy ir € Titua] circling of the Kaaba is Thu AL FONSO x. THE SCORPIONS For the idols, sacred ground, Ka‘ba for the circling. pilgrim the tables of the Torah 6 the scrolls of the Qur'an I profess the religion of love. Wherever its caravan turns along the way, that is the belief, the faith 1 keep. Like Bishr, Hind and her sister, love-mad Qays and the lost Layla, No id her lover Saki 343 55 60