Pearls or Herds

The Beautiful according to Solomon Ibn Gabirol

Abstract

This article deals with a short, somewhat vague poem by Solomon Ibn Gabirol: Veshine hatzvi ( ושיני הצבי ). Although seemingly a "love poem" describing the beauty of a beloved gazelle (and strangely enough focusing solely on its pearly white teeth), I suggest reading the poem as an arspoetic work dealing with the aesthetic question of what is beautiful. Furthermore, I place the poem in the context of the Shu'ubiyyah movement and its poetry, which flourished, among other places, in al-Andalus. This movement of non-Arab Muslims challenged the privileged status of native Arabs and criticized archaic conventions and values, including the canon of beauty, in traditional Arabic poetry. Reading Ibn Gabirol's poem in light of the poetry of the Shu'ubiyyah, in particular works by the famous Iraqi poet Abu Nuwas, shows not only that Ibn Gabirol was familiar with and even influenced by that movement's opposition to archaic Arabic poetry, but also that he took a similar stance against what he saw as the equivalent in archaic Hebrew poetry, namely King Solomon's Song of Songs.