Metaphysics of Beauty in Islam ROWE HOLBROOK, VICTORIA
Studia philosophica wratislaviensia,
05/2022, Letnik:
17, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Odprti dostop
I summarize fundamental philosophical principles of the metaphysics of beauty in Arabic, Persian and Turkish thought, literature and culture, beginning with the Quran and hadith. As in Plato, true ...beauty is thought of as the destination of a journey of inner development, but through a distinctively Islamic series of “worlds.” With examples from literature and painting I show how Islamic philosophy elaborated the key role of imagination in realization of true beauty.
I analyze fi gures and themes of Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” evident in chapter thirty-six of the Quran. I argue that the two texts share (1) a neck fetter fixing the head; (2) a spatial ...organization of barriers before and behind and covering above; (3) a theme of failure to see the truth and assault upon those who tell the truth, and (4) a theme of transcendent reality as a context of meaning. I argue that the Quran displays an inheritance of some Platonic thought in Arabic at least two centuries prior to any known translation of Plato.
A collection of essays that presents an analysis of cultural politics in Turkey, arguing that the dominant cliched dualities of East/West and secular/sacred mask a reality of silence, repression and ...return.
Victoria Rowe Holbrook bu çalışmasında onsekizinci asrın sonralarında yaşayan Osmanlı şâiri Şeyh Gâlib’in Hüsnü Aşk’ı ile onüçüncü asırda Anadolu’da yaşayan Mevlânâ Celâleddin-i Rûmî’nin Mesnevî ...isimli eserini karşılaştırmıştır. Gâlib’in Hüsn ü Aşk’ı Mevlânâ’nın Mesnevî’sine göndermeleri içerir. İki eser arasındaki karşılaştırma her iki şâirin eserinde de yer alan ortak bir hikaye ve bu hikayede yer alan Sûretler Kalesi mecazı üzerinden yapılmıştır. Victoria Rowe Holbrook metinlerarasılığı kullanarak Gâlib’in Mevlânâ’dan tevârüs ettiği, hatta bu iki şâirin kadim gelenekten birlikte tevârüs ettikleri temsiller üzerinde durur ve bu iki şâirin referanslarındaki ortaklığa atıfta bulunur.
Şeyh Galib's verse romance Beauty and Love has been received as a startlingly original work, in contrast to broad disparagement of Ottoman poetry as imitative of the Persian. He articulated a poetics ...of originality in a "Digression" taken mid-way through his romance. He ridiculed a notion that poetry is properly the imitation of poetry, offering a series of proofs on the mode of existence, logical necessity, and universality of original poetry.
Shaykh Galib (d. 1799) is celebrated the last of four greatest Turkish poets to write in the classic aesthetic of Ottoman times. E. J. W. Gibb has called his Beauty and Love (Husn-u Ask) "the crown ...and consummation" of the Turkish romance. The present study offers a first translation and critical-interpretive analysis of Galib's work. Narrative techniques articulated in romance, symbolical techniques articulated in mystical discourse, and metaphorical and stylistic techniques articulated in Indian Style lyric come together in Beauty and Love. Galib's plot structure is based on a paradigm made famous by Ahmad Ghazzali which I have called the paradigm of love. It expresses an anagogic relationship between human and divine love: divine love is the exegesis of human love. While remaining scrupulously correct in philosophical terms, Galib inverts the paradigm, presenting a mirrow image of the ancient structure. His symbolic system is derived from that of Rumi: The mode is allusive, depending upon an interplay between passing and archetypal likeness. Galib's symbols are allusive signs pointing out "doors" between different orders of reality. A girl named Beauty and a boy named Love enact the divine drama of human life. The foundations of Galib's metaphorical system were laid by the articulations of the Indian Style. His repeated use of the poetic device of contrast to an extension I have called the coincidence of opposites prepared the way for the modern Turkish symbolist school. His habit of paradox has a dazzling effect upon the reader, who is led to a dynamic realization of the imagery evoked. Galib pauses in the midst of this work to expound his philosophy of poetry, leaving a rare document of Turkish aesthetics. He stresses the reality of poetry as a modality bridging truth and appearance. He personifies it in the character of Noble Speech, taking an intellectual and imaginative leap forward in the millenium-long march of an Islamicate dialogue between spirituality and aesthetics. "Personification" takes on an ontological, rather than allegorical, significance in Galib's poetry. My purpose is to present this sophisticated and beautiful work to an international audience. My priorities were to produce a translation of the highest quality, and to analyse the work according to the professed intentions of its author, carefully defined and simply stated.
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