Averroes` Middle Commentary on Aristotle`s PoeticsAverroes Averroes Charles ButterworthLabel: St Augustine's PressDescription: This volume contains a translation into English of Averroes's Middle Commentary on Aristotle's Poetics an introduction to the translation in which the arguments of both Averroes and Aristotle are sketch out and their differences from Plato and other important thinkers explored an outline analysis of the order of Averroes's commentary annotations to the text a bibliography and a glossary of important terms with their English translations. Heretofore non-Arabic readers have had to depend upon Hermannus Alemannus's Latin translation of Averroes's Middle Commentary or on its English version. Both are inadequate. They incorrectly render Averroes's various arguments and make his beautiful poetic citations read like doggerel. Moreover they provide inaccurate and incomplete information about the sources of those citations and consequently portray Averroes's text as a curious compilation of relics from some exotic but not very learned horde. The present translation is based on a sound critical Arabic edition prepared by the translator. Not only is it the first English translation from the Arabic original but also the first translation of the Arabic text into any language other than medieval Hebrew or Latin. The translation is literal and eloquent albeit more literal when eloquent when sense demands such a sacrifice. Throughout the commentary the same English word is used for the same Arabic word unless an exception is noted. The renditions of the poetic citations are somewhat freer without reaching to unwarranted innovations.
This product would be a great fit for those interested in philosophy or literature who are also knowledgeable about history.
