Books by Marle (Professor of History Hammond

This edition of an anonymous work of fiction reads as a transnational literary whodunnit. How did this hybrid text, blending the Arabic genres of the popular sira and the Udhri; love story with the western fairy tale, come to life? And why was it misconstrued as history in the 19th century? Hammond offers up an intriguing case file.

Classical Arabic literature has a rich tradition of women's poetry-and of lamentation for the dead in particular. This volume contextualises this corpus by examining its favourable reception in the literary canon, its uncanny resemblance to an analogous male-authored 'heroic' poetic corpus, and its relationship to other genres of women's verse.