that the princely and caliphal courts, which had once been the pole of Arabic poetic production and performance, “diminished in importance to the point of irrelevance during the Mamluk period” (89). It is certainly true that much of the poetry from this period is aesthetically distinct and seems to reflect communication between scholarly colleagues, rather than the more radically asymmetrical contexts of panegyric poetry for rulers, as Thomas Bauer has argued. However, it does not necessarily follow that this is a “post-court era” (128). As Talib points out, poetry and anthologies were still sometimes dedicated to Mamluk rulers in this period, even as the piece of the poetic pie taken up by communication between scholars and other elites grew (48). I would contend that we simply know too little about the transformations in the role of poetry at court during the Ayyubid and Mamluk periods to assert that courts were becoming “irrelevant” or to use this irrelevance to explain the new Mamluk aesthetics. A small but important body of research, notably the work by Barbara Flemming, Jo Van Steenbergen, and Christian Mauder, has argued that Mamluks and Mamluk courts played important roles in the patronage, study, and production of adab and of Arabic culture more generally. We also have reason to be cautious about the marginalization thesis, which finds its roots in the assumption that the non-Arab slave-soldier Mamluks were “alien” to the ethnically Arab and linguistically Arabic society, a view that was derived from both nationalism’s presuppositions and the sometimes-hostile Arabic chronicles. One wonders whether our inherited notion of the “marginalization” of Mamluk courts might not be, in part, a product of medieval anthologizers’ curatorial biases, coupled with the broader decline narrative that haunts modern scholarship on the Mamluks. These critiques do nothing to undermine the central claims or significant contributions of this book, which promises to be a foundational one in the field of Mamluk literature. With its ample appendix and annotated bibliography of manuscripts, it provides us with a starting point for future research and debate.

中文翻译：

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虚拟资本：丝绸、棉花和阿拉伯小说的兴起，

曾经是阿拉伯诗歌创作和表演的极点的王侯和哈里发宫廷“在马穆鲁克时期变得无关紧要”（89）。诚然，这一时期的大部分诗歌在美学上是截然不同的，似乎反映了学者同事之间的交流，而不是像托马斯·鲍尔 (Thomas Bauer) 所主张的那样，反映了统治者颂歌诗歌的更根本不对称的背景。然而，这并不一定意味着这是一个“后法庭时代”（128）。正如塔利卜所指出的，在这一时期，诗歌和选集有时仍是献给马穆鲁克统治者的，即使学者和其他精英之间的交流所占据的诗歌蛋糕越来越大（48）。我认为我们只是对阿尤布和马穆鲁克时期诗歌在宫廷中的角色转变知之甚少，无法断言宫廷变得“无关紧要”或用这种无关紧要来解释新的马穆鲁克美学。一个小而重要的研究机构，特别是芭芭拉·弗莱明、乔·范斯滕贝根和克里斯蒂安·莫德的工作，认为马穆鲁克和马穆鲁克法院在阿达布和阿拉伯文化的赞助、研究和生产中发挥了重要作用。我们也有理由对边缘化论点持谨慎态度，该论点的根源在于非阿拉伯奴隶士兵马穆鲁克人是阿拉伯族裔和阿拉伯语社会的“外来者”，这一观点源自两种民族主义的预设以及有时充满敌意的阿拉伯编年史。有人想知道，我们继承的马穆鲁克宫廷“边缘化”概念是否可能不是中世纪选集者策展偏见的产物，再加上困扰现代马穆鲁克学术研究的更广泛的衰落叙事。这些批评并没有削弱这本书的中心主张或重要贡献，这本书有望成为马穆鲁克文学领域的基础。凭借其丰富的附录和带注释的手稿参考书目，它为我们提供了未来研究和辩论的起点。这些批评并没有削弱这本书的中心主张或重要贡献，这本书有望成为马穆鲁克文学领域的基础。凭借其丰富的附录和带注释的手稿参考书目，它为我们提供了未来研究和辩论的起点。这些批评并没有削弱这本书的核心主张或重要贡献，这本书有望成为马穆鲁克文学领域的基础。凭借其丰富的附录和带注释的手稿参考书目，它为我们提供了未来研究和辩论的起点。