Chapter 17. Latin literature and the Arabic language

Abstract

Pointing to a millennial history of Latin-Arabic entanglement, the article analyses how Latin literature and the Arabic language influenced each other mutually. It explains the preliminaries of literary entanglement and then deals in chronological order with processes of reception, which led to the Arabization or Latinization of literary works, themes, and forms. The Arabic reception of Latin works was channelled by the explicit Christian character of medieval Latin literature, geopolitical shifts, and the increasing relevance of the Romance vernaculars. Latin textual culture, in turn, has benefited more from Arabic than from any other language except Greek. However, processes of reception were much stronger in the field of scholarly works than in the field of literature proper.