Meisami, Julie Scott and Paul Starkey, ed. Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature. London: Routledge, 1998.
Contains entries on poets, writers, genres, forms, and many other topics. The following are particularly relevant: ‘Abbāsids; adab; ancients and moderns; anthologies, medieval; artistic prose; didactic literature; encyclopedias, medieval; epigram; fables; fakhr; fiction, medieval; genres, poetic; ghazal; hazl; hijā’; ḥikma; historical literature; humour; Jāhiliyya; khamriyya; literary criticism, medieval; madīḥ, madḥ; Mamlūks; maqāma; Mirrors for Princes; muḥdathūn, “the moderns”; mujūn; muwashshaḥ; oral composition; Persian literature, relations with Arabic; poetry vs. prose; popular literature; prose, non-fiction, medieval; prosody (‘arūḍ); qaṣīda; qiṭ‘a; rajaz; religious poetry; rhetoric and poetics; rhetorical figures; rithā’; saj‘; satire, medieval; Shu‘ūbiyya; Spain; story-telling; Ṣūfī literature, poetry; Ṣūfī literature, prose; theatre and drama, medieval; travel literature; Umayyads; waṣf; zajal; zuhdiyya.
The Encyclopaedia of Islam, New [= second] Edition. Leiden: Brill, 1960–2009. A third edition began to appear in 2007 in print and online.
Many relevant entries as in the preceding title, often more detailed. Note the divergent transliteration used: dj for j and ḳ for q (the third edition has abandoned this).
Encyclopædia Iranica. London and New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1982–, also online.
In progress; with many relevant entries because the numerous Arabic poets and writers of Persian descent are incorporated. One should be aware of the transliteration system, with “Ebn” for Ibn (and o for u, i for ī, u for ū, ż for ḍ, etc.).
Cooperson, Michael and Shawkat M. Toorawa, ed. Arabic Literary Culture, 500–925. Dictionary of Literary Biography, vol. 311. Detroit: Thomson Gale, 2005.
Contains chapters on the following poets and authors included in this anthology: Abū al-‘Atāhiyah, Abū Nuwās, Bashshār ibn Burd, al-Buḥturī, Dhū al-Rummah, Ibn al-Muqaffa‘, al-Jāḥiẓ, Jarīr, al-Khansā’, ‘Umar ibn Abī Rabī‘ah.
Lowry, Joseph E. and Devin J. Stewart, ed. Essays in Arabic Literary Biography, 1350–1850. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2009, pp. 251–62. (Mîzân: Studien zur Literatur in der islamischen Welt, Bd. 17: Essays in Arabic Literary Biography, 2).
Contains chapters on Jamāl al-Dīn Ibn Nubātah and al-Shirbīnī, represented in this anthology.
The Cambridge History of Arabic Literature.
A series of six multi-authored volumes, five of which deal with the pre-modern period. The contributions are of varying quality. The volumes are:
Beeston, A. F. L., T. M. Johnstone, R. B. Serjeant, and G. R. Smith, ed. Arabic Literature to the End of the Umayyad Period. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.
Ashtiany, Julia, T. M. Johnstone, J. D. Latham, and R. B. Serjeant, ed. ‘Abbasid Belles Lettres. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
Young, M. J. L., J. D. Latham, and R. B. Serjeant, ed. Religion, Learning and Science in the ‘Abbasid Period. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
Menocal, María Rosa, Raymond P. Scheindlin, and Michael Sells, ed. The Literature of Al-Andalus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Allen, Roger and D. S. Richards, ed. Arabic Literature in the Post-Classical Period. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
Two recent single-volume surveys of Arabic literature in all its periods
Allen, Roger. The Arabic Literary Heritage: The Development of its Genres and Criticism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998; a shortened version appeared as An Introduction to Arabic Literature, Cambridge, 2000.
Cachia, Pierre. Arabic Literature: An Overview. London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2002.
Other anthologies with English translations
Nicholson, Reynold A. Translations of Eastern Poetry and Prose. Cambridge: The University Press, 1922, reprinted with introduction by C. E. Bosworth. London: Curzon, 1987.
Literary translations from classical Arabic and Persian prose and poetry.
Howarth, Herbert and Ibrahim Shukrallah. Images from the Arab World. London: The Pilot Press, 1944.
Prose and poetry (verse translations), in no apparent order; mostly classical with some modern authors; no annotation.
Irwin, Robert. Nights and Horses and the Desert: An Anthology of Classical Arabic Literature. London: Penguin, 1999. Reprinted as The Penguin Anthology of Classical Arabic Literature, London: Penguin, 2006.
A good selection of translations by many different translators, all previously published (but with diacritical signs expurgated), with the compiler’s commentary and linking passages, printed in a larger font size than the texts themselves, a priority which the present anthology reverses.
Arberry, A. J. Arabic Poetry: A Primer for Students. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965.
Contains the Arabic texts of poems for the pre-Islamic period to the early 20th century with facing prose translations, with some annotation.
Arberry, A. J. Poems of al-Mutanabbī: A Selection with Introduction, Translations and Notes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967.
Arabic texts with facing prose translations and some annotation.
Jones, Alan. Early Arabic Poetry, I: Marāthī and Ṣu‘lūk Poems, II: Select Odes, Edition, Translation and Commentary, 2 vols. Reading, U.K.: Ithaca Press, 1992, 1996. Reprinted in one volume as Early Arabic Poetry: Select Poems, 2011.
Very instructive volumes with Arabic texts, scholarly translations in prose and detailed philological commentary. The poems in vol. I are elegies and odes by the ṣa‘ālīk (“brigand poets”) including the famous Lāmiyyat al‘arab; vol. II contains qaṣīdahs, including the celebrated Mu‘allaqāt poems by Imru’ al-Qays, Labīd, and ‘Abīd ibn al-Abraṣ. All poems date from the pre-Islamic or very early Islamic period.
Lyall, Charles James. The Mufaḍḍalīyat: An Anthology of Ancient Arabian Odes compiled by al-Mufaḍḍal, Vol. II: Translation and Notes. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1918.
Richly annotated translations (mostly in prose) of an important early anthology of pre-Islamic and early Islamic poems, with useful thematic index.
Beeston, A. F. L. Selections from the Poetry of Baššār, edited with translation and commentary and an introductory sketch of Arabic poetic structures. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977.
Arabic texts and annotated prose translations.
Sells, Michael A., translator and introduction. Desert Tracings: Six Classic Arabian Odes by ‘Alqama, Shánfara, Labíd, ‘Antara, Al-A‘sha, and Dhu al-Rúmma. Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press, 1989.
Reliable and readable poetic translations of longer poems from the pre-Islamic and early Islamic periods, with short introduction and analysis of each poem.
Tuetey, C. G. Classical Arabic Poetry: 162 poems from Imrulkais to Ma‘arri. Translated with an introduction. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1985.
Good verse translations. Cherry-picking: almost all items are short fragments of longer poems; the use of obscure editions makes it difficult to consult the original texts.
Wightman, G. B. H. and A. Y. al-Udhari. Birds Through a Ceiling of Alabaster: Three Abbasid Poets. Arab Poetry of the Abbasid Period Translated with an Introduction. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1975.
Epigrams, mostly very short, by al-‘Abbās ibn al-Aḥnaf, Ibn al-Mu‘tazz, and Abū l-‘Alā’ al-Ma‘arrī, in very free, “modernizing” verse translations, lacking references to sources.
Monroe, James T. Hispano-Arabic Poetry: A Student Anthology. Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1974.
Arabic texts of poems from Arab Spain, with facing prose translations; annotated.
Mumayiz, Ibrahim. Arabesques: Selections of Biography and Poetry from Classical Arabic Literature. Antwerp–Apeldoorn: Garant, 2006.
Contains rhymed translations of fragments from poems by two pre-Islamic poets (Imru’ al-Qays and ‘Antarah) and two Abbasid poets (al-Mutanabbī and al-Ma‘arrī), without references to sources. Suffers badly from archaizing tendencies and what could be called poetic apostrophitis (“invis’ble,” “succ’lent,” “lim’ted,” “s’long as,” “No oth’r calam’ty,” etc.).