RICHARD
HITCHCOCK
“The 'Romance' Kharjas in
perspective”
by
Richard Hitchcock [IAIS, Exeter]
SUMMARY:
In the sixteen years since the first International Symposium on the muwashshaha
and the kharja held in Exeter in 1988, attitudes towards the latter have
consolidated. Abu-Haidar, Federico Corriente, Galmés de Fuentes, Alan Jones and
Otto Zwartjes have produced major works; other scholars such as Benabu, Hanlon,
Ulf Haxen, Arie Schippers, Gregor Schoeler, Wulstan and Yahalom have cast light
on differing aspects, but the trend of recent scholarship, in so far as one may
been determined, has been toward the muwashshaha rather than its kharja
[with a particular focus perhaps on the musical nature of the former]. This
development is not unwelcome, but one may observe that kharja
scholarship to a large extent predates that of the muwashshaha. In this
paper, an attempt will be made to explain the rise of what might be called the kharja
phenomenon, and to put forward reasons why, if the Romance kharjas did
not exist, then they would have had to have been invented. Attention will be
paid to the relationship of the available text to end product, to the
interpretative methods adopted and to the nature of the influence they wielded.