Myrne, P. (2017). Pleasing the Beloved: Sex and True Love in a Medieval Arabic Erotic Compendium. In Michael Beard, Alireza Korangy, and Hanadi al-Samman (eds.), Beloved: Love and Languishing in Middle Eastern Literatures (pp. 215-236). Bloomsbury Publishing.

The concept of ‘the beloved’ has long been a major metaphor in both poetry and prose throughout the Middle East’s long literary history. The author explored in this book the concept of the beloved in a cross-cultural and interdisciplinary way, illustrating how shared thoughts on the subject transcend geographical and temporal barriers, as well as ideas of nationhood. In this book, author examined the beloved in its classical, contemporary, and postmodern forms, taking into account various sexual orientations and kinds of desire. The Beloved in Middle Eastern Literatures connected the affective and cultural with the political and the obscene, from pre-Islamic ‘Udhri (romantic unrequited love) to erotic same-sex love in thirteenth century poetry and prose, divine Sufi reflections on the topic, and post-revolutionary love encounters in Iran, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. This book emphasized what is typically viewed as a ‘taboo subject’ in the region by focusing on the various manifestations of love and clichés of the lover/beloved duality.

Myrne, P. (2017). Pleasing the Beloved: Sex and True Love in a Medieval Arabic Erotic Compendium. In Michael Beard, Alireza Korangy, and Hanadi al-Samman (eds.), Beloved: Love and Languishing in Middle Eastern Literatures (pp. 215-236). Bloomsbury Publishing.