| Popis: |
This discussion of the tower-palace Qalahurra al-jadïda (known as the "Tower of the Captive"), among the least studied buildings in the Alhambra, begins with a history of the restoration of the precinct, as well as the typology of the tower-palace as found elsewhere in the Alhambra and other Nasrid sites. The overall architectural analysis leads to the main hall, the chief site of inscriptions. After commenting on the Qurʾānic and formulaic epigraphy, attention focuses on the inscriptions of four interrelated poems composed by Ibn al-Jayyāb. The preceding chapter grounds a move beyond the prevailing mimetic presuppositions of previous scholarship to an examination of his references to medieval Arabic badīc poetics and his own figurative language. The chapter argues that the poetic inscriptions serve to articulate the aesthetic principles embodied in the hybrid architecture of the tower-palace and also to explain the interrelationships between the geometric, vegetal and epigraphic motifs in its architectural decoration. Most broadly, in speaking for the analogy between poetic figures and the forms of architectural decoration, the poetry inscribed in the Qalahurra al-jadïda gives explicit expression to the role of inter-medial relations in the aesthetic of the Alhambra. |
