Love at the Limits: Exploring Early Persian Romances on the ‘Borders’ with Greek, Arabic, Indic, and Old French Texts
- Date
- 25 September 2025, 15:15–17:00
- Location
- English Park, 9-3042
- Type
- Seminar
- Lecturer
- Cameron Cross
- Web page
- https://retracingconnections.org/
- Organiser
- Retracing Connections
- Contact person
- Ingela Nilsson
In this presentation, I will outline the contours of what I have in mind as a book-length project, the second stage of my investigation into the development and function of independent versified love-stories (or "romances") as they became established in New Persian literature in the early eleventh century CE.
Intriguingly, two of the earliest texts in this corpus are translations and adaptations from Greek and Arabic sources – the novel Metiochus and Parthenope, and the tale of ‘Urwa b. Hizam – and in both cases, part of the motivation behind their recasting into Persian seems to be connected with their geo-political context, as texts produced in borderlands trying to make sense of and grapple with Otherness, in both direct and indirect ways. Through a few brief case studies, I hope to consider with you how the concept of the "border" might be a useful heuristic in unpacking the dynamics of entanglement, exchange, tension, and yes, love as well, that are conveyed in this emergent literary tradition.