His chief poem forms part of the Mu'allaqāt, the collection of seven "hanging odes" legendarily said to have been suspended in the Kaaba at Mecca.

[1] He gained attention and respect for himself by his personal qualities and courage in battle, excelling as an accomplished poet and a mighty warrior.

When his father said to him, "ʿAntarah, fight with the warriors", he replied that "the slave doesn't know how to invade or how to defend, but is only good for milking goats and serving his masters".

To secure allowance to marry, Antarah had to face challenges including getting a special kind of camel from the Northern Arab Lakhmid Kingdom, then under al-Nu'man III ibn al-Mundhir.

[1] His poetry's historical and cultural importance stems from its detailed descriptions of battles, armour, weapons, horses, desert, and other themes from his time.

The story of ʿAntar and ʿAbla was embroidered into a poetic saga traditionally credited to al-Asmaʿi, a poet in the court of Hārūn al-Rashīd.

The Lebanese painter Rafic Charaf developed from the 1960s a series of paintings depicting the epics of Antar and Abla.

W. Ahlwardt's Bemerkungen über die Aechtheit der alten arabischen Gedichte (Greifswald, 1872), pp. 50ff.

The Romance of 'Antar (Sīrat 'Antar ibn Shaddād) is a work which was long handed down by oral tradition only; it has grown to immense proportions and has been published in 32 vols.