The Languages of Exile in the Literatures of Al-Andalus

Abstract

The scholarship on medieval literary multilingualism is mostly focused on a utilitarian notion of language choice which only depends on genre or the type of audience. Languages in this context have little political value and do not necessarily identify a writer with a specific political community. In Al-Andalus, however, the coexistence of Muslims, Jews and Christians suffused the question of language choice with a strong sense of belonging. Loyalty to the sacred language of each religion was transposed to a series of deeply exilic theoretical discourses and literary practices which were very different from the utilitarian outlook of the rest of Europe: an elegiac lament for the loss of Latin, a deep concern about the purity of Arabic far from the great seats of learning in the Middle East, and the efforts of recovering Biblical Hebrew as a poetic language.

Keywords

• multilingüismo literario
• lealtad lingüística
• literatura hispanohebrea
• literatura hispanoárabe
• literatura mozárabe
• literatura medieval