With the support of the Einstein Visiting Fellowship, the Berlin Graduate School Muslim Cultures and Societies brought a leading international scholar in Graeco-Arabica (i.e., the scientific translations from Greek into Arabic) to Freie Universität Berlin: Dimitri Gutas of Yale University.

The Greek original of the Poetics was edited in 2012 with D. Gutas as co-editor of this first editio maior of the text (Leiden, with L. Tarán). The aim of this project is to edit critically and translate into English all translations of Aristotle's Poetics and their commentaries in all languages they existed: Syriac, Arabic, Latin, and Hebrew. This will be accompanied by a comparative study of its intellectual history that bridges the cultures in the Near East, North Africa, and Europe, and traverses the religions of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism.

Gutas was appointed Einstein Visiting Fellow at the BGSMCS in 2016-2019 (project phase I), and 2019-2021 (project phase II). For this project, D. Gutas and B. Gruendler have gathered a group of cooperating Berlin scholars from Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, and the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, as well as international scholars. These are organized in core teams for each language, which focus on the respective editions of the Arabic, Syriac, Latin, and Hebrew versions, and study the cultural and intellectual history of the Poetics as the debate, initiated by the Arabic commentaries continued in Syriac and with the European reception in Latin and Hebrew.

For the first time, a key work of world literature and science – and one that shows the cultural continuum of Europe, North Africa, and the Near East – is being philologically documented and historically contextualized throughout its entire history. The salient developments in the long transmission from antiquity to the Renaissance took place in the Islamic world where the earliest commentaries to the Aristotelian text were composed. Thus, at the core of the project stands the focus on the Poetics in Arabic-Islamic culture. The project, hosted at BGSMCS, is to become a model for future work on key texts, their multilingual editions and contextual studies

Contents of the project volumes:

Vol. 1. (a) A new critical edition of the Greek text of Aristotle's Poetics, based on all the MS evidence – Greek, Syriac, Arabic, and Latin – accompanied by a literal English translation and notes. (b) The text of the Greek MS Sigma which was used by the Syriac translator, not extant, reconstructed on the basis of the readings reflected in the lost Syriac translation rendered into Arabic. Index verborum (editor: D. Gutas).

Vol. 2. (a) The extant Syriac translation, from Greek MS Sigma, of the passage on tragedy, with literal English translation and notes. (b) The Arabic translation of the Poetics from Syriac by Abū Bishr, with literal English translation and notes. Indices verborum (editors: O. Overwien, M. Martelli, Y. Arzhanov [Syriac]; D. Gutas [Arabic]).

Vol. 3. (a) Avicenna's Arabic commentary in the Kitāb al-Shiʿr from the Shifā', with literal English translation and notes. (b) Bar Hebraeus's Syriac summary of Avicenna's commentary, with possible references to the Syriac translation. (c) Nasiraddin Tusi's Persian abridged paraphrase of Avicenna's commentary, with literal English translation and notes. Indices Verborum (editors: D. Gutas, A. A. Sakr [Arabic]; H. Takahashi, V. Chamourgiotaki [Syriac], Matthew Melvin-Koushky [Persian]).

Vol. 4. (a) Averroes' Talkhīṣ of the Arabic Poetics, with literal English translation and notes. (b) Ibn Tumlus's paraphrase, related to Averroes, with literal English translation and notes. Indices verborum (editors: M. Salim Salim, D. Gutas, T. Frey, B. Gruendler, A. A. Sakr [Averroes]; M. Ben Ahmed, D. Gutas, B. Gruendler, A.A. Sakr [Ibn Tumlus]).

Vol. 5. (a) The medieval Latin translation of Averroes by Hermann the German, with literal English translation and notes. (b) The medieval Hebrew translation of Averroes by Todrosi, with literal English translation and notes. Indices verborum (editors: L. Minio-Paluello, F. Bulgarini, D. Gutas, T. Frey [Hermann]; F. Gorgoni, V. Chamourgiotaki [Todrosi]).

Vol. 6. (a) The Renaissance retroversions of Todrosi's Hebrew version into Latin by Mantino, and (b) De Balmes, with literal English translation and notes. (c) Poetica Minora: Brief Arabic essays on poetics not related to Aristotle's work by various authors, with literal English translation and notes. Indices verborum (editors: F. Gorgoni, T. Frey, F. Bulgarini, D. Gutas [retroversions]; A. A. Sakr, V. Chamourgiotaki, D. Gutas, M. Zarantonello, J. Jabbour [Poetica minora]).

Vol. 7. Glossary of significant terms in all texts and languages. Concordance of the glossaries and related studies; Bibliographies; Indices (editors: D. Gutas; B. Gruendler, S. Wilder, T. Frey et al.).

Vol. 8. Proceedings of the conference Why Translate Science? Documents from Antiquity to the 16th Century in the Historical West (Bactria to the Atlantic). The source texts are published both in the original language and in English translation; a general introduction; introductory sections by each contributor, (editor: D. Gutas, with the assistance of Ch. Burnett and U. Vagelpohl; contributions by M. Angold; Ch. Burnett, D. Cohen; G. Freudenthal; D. N. Hasse; A. Kaldellis; F. Mundt; I. Sánchez; I. Toral; U. Vagelpohl; M. Zakeri). Brill/Leiden, 2022.

The project team has been constituted of executive-advisory members and the groups of researchers for the Arabic, Syriac, Latin, Persian and Hebrew versions of Aristotle's Poetics and its commentaries. The Greek original of the Poetics was edited in 2012 with D. Gutas as co-editor of this first editio maior (Leiden, with L. Tarán).

Contact 

office@bgsmcs.fu-berlin.de 
arabic-studies-research-admin@geschkult.fu-berlin.de

Aristotle's Poetics, c/o Seminar for Semitic and Arabic Studies, Department of History and Cultural Studies, Freie Universität Berlin, Fabeckstraße 23/25, 14195 Berlin