Ibn Ḥazm in Cordoba and the typical features of the topos of love

Abstract

Ibn Ḥazm in Cordoba and the typical features of the love topic. Ibn Ḥazm in Cordoba and the typical features of the topic of love. This article offers a rereading of the work by Ibn Ḥazm, and the literary contaminations related to the topic of love, guided by historical factors rather than artistic ones. In  fact, the author lived during the stormiest period in the history of al-Andalus, known as the mulūk al-ṭawāˀif era, characterized by struggles and rivalries for power in the Iberian Peninsula. The city of Cordoba played the role of the main political axis and the cultural center, where the legacy of the Arab-Islamic culture and literature was received by Ibn Ḥazm, and then transmitted to European literature. In this regard, the Battle of Barbastro should be considered an important historical antecedent that surely favored contaminations between the two literary repertoires. After such an event, many singers (qiyān), were deported to the courts of Southern France, taking with them their artistic and  literary background, and favoring the emergence and development of troubadour poetry. The comparison between the lyrics of troubadours and the texts  of the Collar by Ibn Ḥazm suggests, at least, the hypothesis of a contamination due to intertextuality and interdiscursiveness, if not direct contact..