ABSTRACT
The two preceding chapters have discussed the articles of the Aghānī almost as though they were discrete texts. Since, as a rule, articles are marked off from each other by an introductory song and a title, they can be read in isolation from each other. But an attentive reading of the book in its entirety, or of substantial parts of it, will identify recurrent themes, repeated quotations, secondary characters who frequently appear and other elements shared by various articles. These elements belong to a common fund of material from which the Kitāb al-aghānī draws. Another characteristic encountered throughout the work is the introduction of articles by songs, and the fact that lines of poetry set to music precede every new subject (in the central part of the book, on royal musicians, this is slightly modified) gives the book a particular rhythm. 1 It may not be too far-fetched to suggest that the Aghāni resembles a woven cloth, with the articles functioning as the warp, and the elements from the common fund and the introductory songs linking articles as the weft.
