Robyn Creswell
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780691182186
- eISBN:
- 9780691185149
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691182186.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter focuses on Adonis's Diwan al-shi'r al-'arabi [Anthology of Arabic Poetry], a three-volume florilegium published between 1964 and 1968 whose origins are in the dossiers of pre-Islamic ...
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This chapter focuses on Adonis's Diwan al-shi'r al-'arabi [Anthology of Arabic Poetry], a three-volume florilegium published between 1964 and 1968 whose origins are in the dossiers of pre-Islamic poetry first published in Shi'r. The Diwan was the most consequential revision of the classical heritage undertaken by Adonis. It is a massive critical project that hews strictly to the original impetus of Shi'r, a movement based on the paired goals of literary autonomy and deprovincialization. How do these goals affect Adonis's decisions as an editor of the corpus of classical poetry? As a collection of citations from the turath, the Anthology is a work of internal translation in which source and target texts are exactly the same, though provided with a new context. The chapter suggests that while Adonis's countercanon seeks to restore those voices silenced by orthodoxy, his own choices, tailored to the needs of the present, impose their own exclusions and repressions.Less
This chapter focuses on Adonis's Diwan al-shi'r al-'arabi [Anthology of Arabic Poetry], a three-volume florilegium published between 1964 and 1968 whose origins are in the dossiers of pre-Islamic poetry first published in Shi'r. The Diwan was the most consequential revision of the classical heritage undertaken by Adonis. It is a massive critical project that hews strictly to the original impetus of Shi'r, a movement based on the paired goals of literary autonomy and deprovincialization. How do these goals affect Adonis's decisions as an editor of the corpus of classical poetry? As a collection of citations from the turath, the Anthology is a work of internal translation in which source and target texts are exactly the same, though provided with a new context. The chapter suggests that while Adonis's countercanon seeks to restore those voices silenced by orthodoxy, his own choices, tailored to the needs of the present, impose their own exclusions and repressions.
Robyn Creswell
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780691182186
- eISBN:
- 9780691185149
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691182186.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This book is an exploration of modernism in Arabic poetry, a movement that emerged in Beirut during the 1950s and became the most influential and controversial Arabic literary development of the ...
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This book is an exploration of modernism in Arabic poetry, a movement that emerged in Beirut during the 1950s and became the most influential and controversial Arabic literary development of the twentieth century. The book introduces English-language readers to a poetic movement that will be uncannily familiar—and unsettlingly strange. It provides an intellectual history of Lebanon during the early Cold War, when Beirut became both a battleground for rival ideologies and the most vital artistic site in the Middle East. Arabic modernism was centered on the legendary magazine Shi'r (“Poetry”), which sought to put Arabic verse on “the map of world literature.” The Beiruti poets—Adonis, Yusuf al-Khal, and Unsi al-Hajj chief among them—translated modernism into Arabic, redefining the very idea of poetry in that literary tradition. This book includes analyses of the Arab modernists' creative encounters with Ezra Pound, Saint-John Perse, and Antonin Artaud, as well as their adaptations of classical literary forms. The book also reveals how the modernists translated concepts of liberal individualism, autonomy, and political freedom into a radical poetics that has shaped Arabic literary and intellectual debate to this day.Less
This book is an exploration of modernism in Arabic poetry, a movement that emerged in Beirut during the 1950s and became the most influential and controversial Arabic literary development of the twentieth century. The book introduces English-language readers to a poetic movement that will be uncannily familiar—and unsettlingly strange. It provides an intellectual history of Lebanon during the early Cold War, when Beirut became both a battleground for rival ideologies and the most vital artistic site in the Middle East. Arabic modernism was centered on the legendary magazine Shi'r (“Poetry”), which sought to put Arabic verse on “the map of world literature.” The Beiruti poets—Adonis, Yusuf al-Khal, and Unsi al-Hajj chief among them—translated modernism into Arabic, redefining the very idea of poetry in that literary tradition. This book includes analyses of the Arab modernists' creative encounters with Ezra Pound, Saint-John Perse, and Antonin Artaud, as well as their adaptations of classical literary forms. The book also reveals how the modernists translated concepts of liberal individualism, autonomy, and political freedom into a radical poetics that has shaped Arabic literary and intellectual debate to this day.
Peter Webb
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781474408264
- eISBN:
- 9781474421867
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474408264.003.0003
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Middle Eastern Cultural Anthropology
Developing Chapter 1’s findings on pre-Islamic Arabian society, this chapter proposes a new origin point for Arab communal consciousness. Chapter 2 seeks the first groups of people who called ...
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Developing Chapter 1’s findings on pre-Islamic Arabian society, this chapter proposes a new origin point for Arab communal consciousness. Chapter 2 seeks the first groups of people who called themselves ‘Arabs’ and explores how those people can be identified from historical records. We begin by appraising the evidence about Arabic language: when and where did it evolve and to what extent does Arabic-language use delineate Arab communal identity? We evaluate the surprising paucity of pre-Islamic Arabic records, and next turn to pre-Islamic poetry to examine its citation of the word ‘Arab’ alongside the senses of community the poets articulate. Pre-Islamic poetic reference to ‘Arabs’ is also almost non-existent, whereas alternative forms of communal identity are clearly expressed, in particular, a people known as Maʿadd. Marshalling theories of ethnogenesis to interpret the evidence, this chapter sheds new light on pre-Islamic Arabia’s fragmented communal boundaries. Chapter 2 closes with early Islamic-era poetry where poets first begin to call themselves ‘Arabs’, suggesting that Arab ethnogenesis was a result, not a cause of the rise of Islam.Less
Developing Chapter 1’s findings on pre-Islamic Arabian society, this chapter proposes a new origin point for Arab communal consciousness. Chapter 2 seeks the first groups of people who called themselves ‘Arabs’ and explores how those people can be identified from historical records. We begin by appraising the evidence about Arabic language: when and where did it evolve and to what extent does Arabic-language use delineate Arab communal identity? We evaluate the surprising paucity of pre-Islamic Arabic records, and next turn to pre-Islamic poetry to examine its citation of the word ‘Arab’ alongside the senses of community the poets articulate. Pre-Islamic poetic reference to ‘Arabs’ is also almost non-existent, whereas alternative forms of communal identity are clearly expressed, in particular, a people known as Maʿadd. Marshalling theories of ethnogenesis to interpret the evidence, this chapter sheds new light on pre-Islamic Arabia’s fragmented communal boundaries. Chapter 2 closes with early Islamic-era poetry where poets first begin to call themselves ‘Arabs’, suggesting that Arab ethnogenesis was a result, not a cause of the rise of Islam.
Michael W. Dols and Diana E. Immisch
- Published in print:
- 1992
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198202219
- eISBN:
- 9780191675218
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198202219.003.0012
- Subject:
- History, World Medieval History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
Profane love, when it was excessive, was commonly believed to be a form of madness. This chapter discusses love in the light of the Qur'an and romantic love in Arabic poetry, such as that of Majnun. ...
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Profane love, when it was excessive, was commonly believed to be a form of madness. This chapter discusses love in the light of the Qur'an and romantic love in Arabic poetry, such as that of Majnun. Profane love was usually considered by Muslim writers from two opposing points of view. The positive view of love ('ishq) saw it as ‘a complex and exceedingly interesting but mysterious human experience’. The negative view of 'ishq considered it as a moral/religious issue; 'ishq was equated with lust — a vulnerability that was particularly detrimental to Arab male pride — that could easily lead to a tragic end.Less
Profane love, when it was excessive, was commonly believed to be a form of madness. This chapter discusses love in the light of the Qur'an and romantic love in Arabic poetry, such as that of Majnun. Profane love was usually considered by Muslim writers from two opposing points of view. The positive view of love ('ishq) saw it as ‘a complex and exceedingly interesting but mysterious human experience’. The negative view of 'ishq considered it as a moral/religious issue; 'ishq was equated with lust — a vulnerability that was particularly detrimental to Arab male pride — that could easily lead to a tragic end.
Yasir Suleiman
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748637386
- eISBN:
- 9780748653218
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748637386.003.0016
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Middle Eastern Studies
This chapter discusses the role of poetry in identity formation and nation building in the Arab-speaking world. Western theories of nationalism treat the novel as the locus of national narratives. ...
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This chapter discusses the role of poetry in identity formation and nation building in the Arab-speaking world. Western theories of nationalism treat the novel as the locus of national narratives. The chapter argues that this view is Western-centric and that, in the Arab context, poetry plays that role more than the novel. It further discusses some Arabic poetry, and the Arab diaspora, mahjar, in which poetry, as a meta-linguistic discourse reflects on the role of language as a primary marker of Arab identity and emphasises its role in superseding ethnic tensions in the Arab body politic.Less
This chapter discusses the role of poetry in identity formation and nation building in the Arab-speaking world. Western theories of nationalism treat the novel as the locus of national narratives. The chapter argues that this view is Western-centric and that, in the Arab context, poetry plays that role more than the novel. It further discusses some Arabic poetry, and the Arab diaspora, mahjar, in which poetry, as a meta-linguistic discourse reflects on the role of language as a primary marker of Arab identity and emphasises its role in superseding ethnic tensions in the Arab body politic.
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804776462
- eISBN:
- 9780804782609
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804776462.003.0003
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Middle Eastern Cultural Anthropology
The sound was an important foundation of the Arab poetic tradition. The earliest rhythms of Arabic poetry probably evolved from a variety of sources, including the vast stillness of the sands or ...
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The sound was an important foundation of the Arab poetic tradition. The earliest rhythms of Arabic poetry probably evolved from a variety of sources, including the vast stillness of the sands or sweltering heat, and turned into a form that came to stand for Arabic poetry. This form has been known as qasida (ode) in Arabia for at least 1,600 years. This chapter explores some basic and influential concepts, techniques, words, figures, forces, and legends that animated and continue to animate the Arab poetic tradition, focusing on a set of encounters running through the history of Arabic poetry between political authority and the authority of poetry. It also examines the relation between Islam (and specifically the Quran) and poetry. By traversing the distance between the Quran and poetry, this chapter argues that in order to understand the place of local Palestinian poetry in the modern world, it is necessary to acknowledge its place in the larger Arab poetic tradition.Less
The sound was an important foundation of the Arab poetic tradition. The earliest rhythms of Arabic poetry probably evolved from a variety of sources, including the vast stillness of the sands or sweltering heat, and turned into a form that came to stand for Arabic poetry. This form has been known as qasida (ode) in Arabia for at least 1,600 years. This chapter explores some basic and influential concepts, techniques, words, figures, forces, and legends that animated and continue to animate the Arab poetic tradition, focusing on a set of encounters running through the history of Arabic poetry between political authority and the authority of poetry. It also examines the relation between Islam (and specifically the Quran) and poetry. By traversing the distance between the Quran and poetry, this chapter argues that in order to understand the place of local Palestinian poetry in the modern world, it is necessary to acknowledge its place in the larger Arab poetic tradition.
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804776462
- eISBN:
- 9780804782609
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804776462.003.0009
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Middle Eastern Cultural Anthropology
This chapter examines rhythmical freedom in Arabic poetry by focusing on the narratives of a number of Arab poets such as Mahmoud Abu Hashhash, Nazik al-Mala'ika, Al-Munsif al-Wahaybi, and Ahmad 'Abd ...
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This chapter examines rhythmical freedom in Arabic poetry by focusing on the narratives of a number of Arab poets such as Mahmoud Abu Hashhash, Nazik al-Mala'ika, Al-Munsif al-Wahaybi, and Ahmad 'Abd al-Mu'ti Hijazi. Abu Hashhash, who mostly publishes free verse, found Ramallah, the seat of a tattered sovereignty, a place from which he hoped to start collecting the pieces of Palestinian existence. In addition to free verse, Abu Hashhash also dabbles in prose poems to show that he is not exclusively committed to a single form. His narrative reflects the idea that the secular has its own rhythm, a rhythm that appreciates the act of return. The poet who devalues repetition and who searches for freedom from rhyme also finds the present more complex than the past. To repudiate traditional verse, it is not necessary to be born in Palestine or in a refugee camp. For example, al-Mala'ika pioneered free verse in Baghdad.Less
This chapter examines rhythmical freedom in Arabic poetry by focusing on the narratives of a number of Arab poets such as Mahmoud Abu Hashhash, Nazik al-Mala'ika, Al-Munsif al-Wahaybi, and Ahmad 'Abd al-Mu'ti Hijazi. Abu Hashhash, who mostly publishes free verse, found Ramallah, the seat of a tattered sovereignty, a place from which he hoped to start collecting the pieces of Palestinian existence. In addition to free verse, Abu Hashhash also dabbles in prose poems to show that he is not exclusively committed to a single form. His narrative reflects the idea that the secular has its own rhythm, a rhythm that appreciates the act of return. The poet who devalues repetition and who searches for freedom from rhyme also finds the present more complex than the past. To repudiate traditional verse, it is not necessary to be born in Palestine or in a refugee camp. For example, al-Mala'ika pioneered free verse in Baghdad.
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804776462
- eISBN:
- 9780804782609
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804776462.003.0013
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Middle Eastern Cultural Anthropology
This chapter examines how secularism pervades Arabic prose poets' relation to the public. Unlike the traditional poets who place themselves above the public and unlike modernist poets of free verse ...
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This chapter examines how secularism pervades Arabic prose poets' relation to the public. Unlike the traditional poets who place themselves above the public and unlike modernist poets of free verse who consider themselves ahead of the public, prose poets have a tendency to position themselves in a place that not only contains the two earlier positions but also transcends them. For prose poets, poetry is its own realm. Paradoxically, their argument that poetry is self-sufficient is punctured by another claim: that their poetry requires mediation for the laity. Six female poets mentioned in this book were devoted mainly to prose while occasionally dabbling in free verse. Two of them found the prose poem to be more feminine, presumably consistent with the secular freedom advanced by feminism in its dominant modes.Less
This chapter examines how secularism pervades Arabic prose poets' relation to the public. Unlike the traditional poets who place themselves above the public and unlike modernist poets of free verse who consider themselves ahead of the public, prose poets have a tendency to position themselves in a place that not only contains the two earlier positions but also transcends them. For prose poets, poetry is its own realm. Paradoxically, their argument that poetry is self-sufficient is punctured by another claim: that their poetry requires mediation for the laity. Six female poets mentioned in this book were devoted mainly to prose while occasionally dabbling in free verse. Two of them found the prose poem to be more feminine, presumably consistent with the secular freedom advanced by feminism in its dominant modes.
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804776462
- eISBN:
- 9780804782609
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804776462.003.0006
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Middle Eastern Cultural Anthropology
This chapter focuses on the traditionally lyrical al-'āmūdī form of Arabic poetry and its non-secular topography. Both Mahmoud al-Desouqi and Ahmad Bekheit said they memorized a significant amount of ...
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This chapter focuses on the traditionally lyrical al-'āmūdī form of Arabic poetry and its non-secular topography. Both Mahmoud al-Desouqi and Ahmad Bekheit said they memorized a significant amount of canonical Arabic poetry, all al-'āmūdī form. Although they primarily compose al-'āmūdī, they occasionally dabble in free verse. However, they never practiced the prose poem, the poem without meters, which they do not consider to be a poem at all. Another poet who abstains from the prose poem, even after entirely abandoning al-'āmūdī, is Samih al-Qasim. The non-secular rhythms of al-Qasim's story is evident in his account of freedom, an account that deviates from certain triumphant liberal visions (negative or positive) of freedom as an absence of restrictions and an insertion of autonomy. He, along with Hanna Ibrahim, claims that meters are initially difficult and restrictive, but once mastered, they come naturally. This chapter also looks at another Arabic poet, 'Abd al-Majid Hamid.Less
This chapter focuses on the traditionally lyrical al-'āmūdī form of Arabic poetry and its non-secular topography. Both Mahmoud al-Desouqi and Ahmad Bekheit said they memorized a significant amount of canonical Arabic poetry, all al-'āmūdī form. Although they primarily compose al-'āmūdī, they occasionally dabble in free verse. However, they never practiced the prose poem, the poem without meters, which they do not consider to be a poem at all. Another poet who abstains from the prose poem, even after entirely abandoning al-'āmūdī, is Samih al-Qasim. The non-secular rhythms of al-Qasim's story is evident in his account of freedom, an account that deviates from certain triumphant liberal visions (negative or positive) of freedom as an absence of restrictions and an insertion of autonomy. He, along with Hanna Ibrahim, claims that meters are initially difficult and restrictive, but once mastered, they come naturally. This chapter also looks at another Arabic poet, 'Abd al-Majid Hamid.
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804776462
- eISBN:
- 9780804782609
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804776462.003.0014
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Middle Eastern Cultural Anthropology
This chapter explores the connection between form and content in Arabic poetry by analyzing the poems themselves. Contemporary literary Arabic poetry is difficult to comprehend because its authors ...
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This chapter explores the connection between form and content in Arabic poetry by analyzing the poems themselves. Contemporary literary Arabic poetry is difficult to comprehend because its authors often vindicate “rational” (that is, nontheistic) authority in society, but their poems are characterized by increasingly “irrational” (mythical) content. Paradoxically, Arabic poetry employs familiar words of daily Arabic but binds them with an opaque significance. This chapter addresses this paradox by looking at the work of an eminent Muslim-born poet: Adonis. It examines his poetry anthology Songs of Mehyar the Damascene (1971), which includes both measured and prose poetry and alludes to an affinity among forms of poetry, freedom, and society. Adonis's writing permits general conjectures about the secularity of modern Arabic poetry. He establishes affiliations with Christianity in search of a secular mode of self-flourishing that extend beyond his choice of single words (mazāmīr vs. anāshīd). Moreover, his enactment of the secular exceeds his disavowal of theistically driven life in general and Islam in particular.Less
This chapter explores the connection between form and content in Arabic poetry by analyzing the poems themselves. Contemporary literary Arabic poetry is difficult to comprehend because its authors often vindicate “rational” (that is, nontheistic) authority in society, but their poems are characterized by increasingly “irrational” (mythical) content. Paradoxically, Arabic poetry employs familiar words of daily Arabic but binds them with an opaque significance. This chapter addresses this paradox by looking at the work of an eminent Muslim-born poet: Adonis. It examines his poetry anthology Songs of Mehyar the Damascene (1971), which includes both measured and prose poetry and alludes to an affinity among forms of poetry, freedom, and society. Adonis's writing permits general conjectures about the secularity of modern Arabic poetry. He establishes affiliations with Christianity in search of a secular mode of self-flourishing that extend beyond his choice of single words (mazāmīr vs. anāshīd). Moreover, his enactment of the secular exceeds his disavowal of theistically driven life in general and Islam in particular.
Heather Sharkey
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520235588
- eISBN:
- 9780520929364
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520235588.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Middle East History
Histories written in the aftermath of empire have often featured conquerors and peasant rebels but have said little about the vast staffs of locally recruited clerks, technicians, teachers, and ...
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Histories written in the aftermath of empire have often featured conquerors and peasant rebels but have said little about the vast staffs of locally recruited clerks, technicians, teachers, and medics who made colonialism work day to day. Even as these workers maintained the colonial state, they dreamed of displacing imperial power. This book examines the history of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan (1898–1956) and the Republic of Sudan that followed in order to understand how colonialism worked on the ground, affected local cultures, influenced the rise of nationalism, and shaped the postcolonial nation-state. Relying on a rich cache of Sudanese Arabic literary sources—including poetry, essays, and memoirs, as well as colonial documents and photographs—it examines colonialism from the viewpoint of those who lived and worked in its midst. By integrating the case of Sudan with material on other countries, particularly India, the book has broad comparative appeal. The author shows that colonial legacies—such as inflexible borders, atomized multi-ethnic populations, and autocratic governing structures—have persisted, hobbling postcolonial nation-states. Thus countries like Sudan are still living with colonialism, struggling to achieve consensus and stability within borders that a fallen empire has left behind.Less
Histories written in the aftermath of empire have often featured conquerors and peasant rebels but have said little about the vast staffs of locally recruited clerks, technicians, teachers, and medics who made colonialism work day to day. Even as these workers maintained the colonial state, they dreamed of displacing imperial power. This book examines the history of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan (1898–1956) and the Republic of Sudan that followed in order to understand how colonialism worked on the ground, affected local cultures, influenced the rise of nationalism, and shaped the postcolonial nation-state. Relying on a rich cache of Sudanese Arabic literary sources—including poetry, essays, and memoirs, as well as colonial documents and photographs—it examines colonialism from the viewpoint of those who lived and worked in its midst. By integrating the case of Sudan with material on other countries, particularly India, the book has broad comparative appeal. The author shows that colonial legacies—such as inflexible borders, atomized multi-ethnic populations, and autocratic governing structures—have persisted, hobbling postcolonial nation-states. Thus countries like Sudan are still living with colonialism, struggling to achieve consensus and stability within borders that a fallen empire has left behind.
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804776462
- eISBN:
- 9780804782609
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804776462.003.0010
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Middle Eastern Cultural Anthropology
With a mixture of nationalist, communist, and socialist voices, Nazareth used to be a venue in which to speak about redemption through Arab nationalism or communist internationalism. This chapter ...
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With a mixture of nationalist, communist, and socialist voices, Nazareth used to be a venue in which to speak about redemption through Arab nationalism or communist internationalism. This chapter focuses on how Arabic poetry in general and Palestinian poetry in particular is secularized and how modern Arab poets such as Edmoun Shehadeh, Ahmad Kiwan, 'Abd al- Karim Abu Khashan, Muhammad al-Batrawi, and Ahmad Dahbour push secularism into the Arab literary imagination. Shehadeh's road to his free verse poetry was paved by Iraqi poets such as Nazik al-Mala'ika and Badr Shakir al-Sayyab. Kiwan was dismayed by the Palestinian and Arabic poetry scene.Less
With a mixture of nationalist, communist, and socialist voices, Nazareth used to be a venue in which to speak about redemption through Arab nationalism or communist internationalism. This chapter focuses on how Arabic poetry in general and Palestinian poetry in particular is secularized and how modern Arab poets such as Edmoun Shehadeh, Ahmad Kiwan, 'Abd al- Karim Abu Khashan, Muhammad al-Batrawi, and Ahmad Dahbour push secularism into the Arab literary imagination. Shehadeh's road to his free verse poetry was paved by Iraqi poets such as Nazik al-Mala'ika and Badr Shakir al-Sayyab. Kiwan was dismayed by the Palestinian and Arabic poetry scene.
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804776462
- eISBN:
- 9780804782609
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804776462.003.0011
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Middle Eastern Cultural Anthropology
This chapter examines the condition of prose in contemporary Arabic poetry, focusing on poets whose sounds are no longer tonally measured verse, but poetry that is a dream. The narratives of poets ...
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This chapter examines the condition of prose in contemporary Arabic poetry, focusing on poets whose sounds are no longer tonally measured verse, but poetry that is a dream. The narratives of poets such as Hussein al-Barghouti, Hilmi Salim, 'A'isha al-Mughrabi, Hussein Muhanna, and Izz al-Din al-Manasra focus on conditions and consequences of this dream. Their contemporary prose poetry was underlain by both prayer (salaa) and dream (hulm). This chapter explores how poets of highly secular sensibilities produce a seemingly otherworldly poetry, and how “the dream” of poets, their poems, underlie and undermine the secular to which they aspire. In the dreams generated by prose poets, measuring sound becomes completely obsolete and an “ordinary” public borders on irrelevance. The chapter concludes by analyzing how faith in the Palestinian revolution disappeared in Palestinian poetry, along with faith that poetry could affect anything outside poetry.Less
This chapter examines the condition of prose in contemporary Arabic poetry, focusing on poets whose sounds are no longer tonally measured verse, but poetry that is a dream. The narratives of poets such as Hussein al-Barghouti, Hilmi Salim, 'A'isha al-Mughrabi, Hussein Muhanna, and Izz al-Din al-Manasra focus on conditions and consequences of this dream. Their contemporary prose poetry was underlain by both prayer (salaa) and dream (hulm). This chapter explores how poets of highly secular sensibilities produce a seemingly otherworldly poetry, and how “the dream” of poets, their poems, underlie and undermine the secular to which they aspire. In the dreams generated by prose poets, measuring sound becomes completely obsolete and an “ordinary” public borders on irrelevance. The chapter concludes by analyzing how faith in the Palestinian revolution disappeared in Palestinian poetry, along with faith that poetry could affect anything outside poetry.
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804776462
- eISBN:
- 9780804782609
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804776462.003.0001
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Middle Eastern Cultural Anthropology
Arab poets in general, and Palestinian poets in particular, have radically transformed the sound structures of their poems in order to modernize poetic forms by turning to free verse and prose poems. ...
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Arab poets in general, and Palestinian poets in particular, have radically transformed the sound structures of their poems in order to modernize poetic forms by turning to free verse and prose poems. Through these forms, poets, not “the sea,” stand sovereign over rhythms. Over the past seven decades, Arabic poems have become ever more silent, marked by ever more irregular rhythms. This book, an ethnography of “literary” transformation, investigates how forms of ethics, politics, epistemologies, and imaginaries have led to this prevailing silence in contemporary Arabic poetry. Drawing on interviews with forty-seven poets, including six women, the book shows how poets' emerging “silence” reflects contradictions and ambiguities of secular formations in modernity as movements in the sounds of rhythms, as well as beyond them. It argues that poetic forms and forms of life are inseparable and makes a number of assumptions about poetry, poets, and poetic form. It looks at the current Palestinian poetry, which is dominated by three forms: a traditional ode in use for more than 1,500 years and two modern arrivals, free verse and prose poetry.Less
Arab poets in general, and Palestinian poets in particular, have radically transformed the sound structures of their poems in order to modernize poetic forms by turning to free verse and prose poems. Through these forms, poets, not “the sea,” stand sovereign over rhythms. Over the past seven decades, Arabic poems have become ever more silent, marked by ever more irregular rhythms. This book, an ethnography of “literary” transformation, investigates how forms of ethics, politics, epistemologies, and imaginaries have led to this prevailing silence in contemporary Arabic poetry. Drawing on interviews with forty-seven poets, including six women, the book shows how poets' emerging “silence” reflects contradictions and ambiguities of secular formations in modernity as movements in the sounds of rhythms, as well as beyond them. It argues that poetic forms and forms of life are inseparable and makes a number of assumptions about poetry, poets, and poetic form. It looks at the current Palestinian poetry, which is dominated by three forms: a traditional ode in use for more than 1,500 years and two modern arrivals, free verse and prose poetry.
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804776462
- eISBN:
- 9780804782609
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804776462.003.0007
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Middle Eastern Cultural Anthropology
This chapter presents the results of the author's interview with the Palestinian poet Hanna Abu-Hanna, who lives in Haifa, Israel. In his autobiography Zillu al-Ghayma (The Shade of the Cloud), ...
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This chapter presents the results of the author's interview with the Palestinian poet Hanna Abu-Hanna, who lives in Haifa, Israel. In his autobiography Zillu al-Ghayma (The Shade of the Cloud), Abu-Hanna describes life in his home village, al-Raineh, near Nazareth, the processions held by local peasants to ask for rain, his Quranic schooling in the town of Sdoud, and his time at the boarding school in Jerusalem under British rule. In his conversations with the author, he revealed his early attachment to romanticism in poetry through his enduring love for Gibran Khalil Gibran. In a typical triumphal vision of secular modernity, the word “tradition” appears as the inimical space of atrophy for both Abu-Hanna and Gibran. Gibran's rebellion inspired Abu-Hanna to shift to socialist realism despite the former's reputation as a pioneer of romanticism in the history of modern Arabic poetry. The question of poets' relationships to their audiences, the people, inevitably surfaced in Abu-Hanna's conversations with the author.Less
This chapter presents the results of the author's interview with the Palestinian poet Hanna Abu-Hanna, who lives in Haifa, Israel. In his autobiography Zillu al-Ghayma (The Shade of the Cloud), Abu-Hanna describes life in his home village, al-Raineh, near Nazareth, the processions held by local peasants to ask for rain, his Quranic schooling in the town of Sdoud, and his time at the boarding school in Jerusalem under British rule. In his conversations with the author, he revealed his early attachment to romanticism in poetry through his enduring love for Gibran Khalil Gibran. In a typical triumphal vision of secular modernity, the word “tradition” appears as the inimical space of atrophy for both Abu-Hanna and Gibran. Gibran's rebellion inspired Abu-Hanna to shift to socialist realism despite the former's reputation as a pioneer of romanticism in the history of modern Arabic poetry. The question of poets' relationships to their audiences, the people, inevitably surfaced in Abu-Hanna's conversations with the author.
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804776462
- eISBN:
- 9780804782609
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804776462.003.0012
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Middle Eastern Cultural Anthropology
The “Path of the Poem” (Darb al-Qasida) in Israel features poems by both Arab and Jewish poets, men and women. There are free verse and prose poetry, none of which are classical. Furthermore, none of ...
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The “Path of the Poem” (Darb al-Qasida) in Israel features poems by both Arab and Jewish poets, men and women. There are free verse and prose poetry, none of which are classical. Furthermore, none of the featured Arab poets is from the 1967 occupied part of Palestine, which allows identity to trail behind the borders of national sovereignty. Memory, including that of Palestinian poetry, is a site of contestation in the struggle for national sovereignties. This chapter explores the Arab prose poet's relation to rhyme, meter, and rhythm. The narratives of these poets, including Zakariyya Muhammad, Taha Muhammad Ali (Abu Nizar), Mahmoud Amin al-Alim, and Nida'a Khoury reveal the kinds of struggles they have faced to ensure the vitality of their techniques along secular lines of belonging. The foundational definition of Arabic poetry as a rhyming and measured speech has lost its authority over poetry.Less
The “Path of the Poem” (Darb al-Qasida) in Israel features poems by both Arab and Jewish poets, men and women. There are free verse and prose poetry, none of which are classical. Furthermore, none of the featured Arab poets is from the 1967 occupied part of Palestine, which allows identity to trail behind the borders of national sovereignty. Memory, including that of Palestinian poetry, is a site of contestation in the struggle for national sovereignties. This chapter explores the Arab prose poet's relation to rhyme, meter, and rhythm. The narratives of these poets, including Zakariyya Muhammad, Taha Muhammad Ali (Abu Nizar), Mahmoud Amin al-Alim, and Nida'a Khoury reveal the kinds of struggles they have faced to ensure the vitality of their techniques along secular lines of belonging. The foundational definition of Arabic poetry as a rhyming and measured speech has lost its authority over poetry.
Cynthia Robinson and Amalia Zomeño
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- January 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780197265697
- eISBN:
- 9780191771897
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197265697.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, Middle East History
This chapter is centred around a rereading of a much-studied narrative of the mawlid celebration held at the Naṣrid court in 764/1362 and preserved in Ibn al-Khaṭīb's Nufāḍat al-jirāb fī ʿulālat ...
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This chapter is centred around a rereading of a much-studied narrative of the mawlid celebration held at the Naṣrid court in 764/1362 and preserved in Ibn al-Khaṭīb's Nufāḍat al-jirāb fī ʿulālat al-ightirāb. It seeks, first, to rehabilitate the extensive body of verse declaimed at the mawlid as a valid source of information concerning the Naṣrid dynasty's attitude toward Sufism, particularly as regards its ongoing renewed project of dynastic legitimisation, and, second, to begin the task of interpreting both compositions and celebration against the complex backdrop of Naṣrid religiosity.Less
This chapter is centred around a rereading of a much-studied narrative of the mawlid celebration held at the Naṣrid court in 764/1362 and preserved in Ibn al-Khaṭīb's Nufāḍat al-jirāb fī ʿulālat al-ightirāb. It seeks, first, to rehabilitate the extensive body of verse declaimed at the mawlid as a valid source of information concerning the Naṣrid dynasty's attitude toward Sufism, particularly as regards its ongoing renewed project of dynastic legitimisation, and, second, to begin the task of interpreting both compositions and celebration against the complex backdrop of Naṣrid religiosity.
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804776462
- eISBN:
- 9780804782609
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804776462.003.0008
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Middle Eastern Cultural Anthropology
In her 1949 collection, Shrapnel and Ashes, the Iraqi poet Nazik al-Mala'ika reflects on her generation's rebellion against the classical Arabic ode. In this collection, all the words of Arabic ...
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In her 1949 collection, Shrapnel and Ashes, the Iraqi poet Nazik al-Mala'ika reflects on her generation's rebellion against the classical Arabic ode. In this collection, all the words of Arabic poetry seem to be incendiary. Her recollection of what happened at that time illustrates how she and others were changing the sounds of their verse to meet the contemporary demands of their souls. Poets like al-Mala'ika are working with the form of free verse in their attempt to compose a quieter and deeper poetry. Among poets of free verse, the secular is more pronounced because it reverberates in their articulation of poetry's realm, tools, and public in ways that sustain secularism's sequestering of spheres. Nine years into the Palestinian collapse of 1948, one poet, Mahmoud Darwish, published the first free verse in al-Jadid. In the narrative of another modern Arab poet, Taha al-Mutawakkil, rhythm is equated with screaming or droning. In their desire to belong to secular modernity in Palestine and elsewhere in the Arab world, poets distanced themselves from the sound of words.Less
In her 1949 collection, Shrapnel and Ashes, the Iraqi poet Nazik al-Mala'ika reflects on her generation's rebellion against the classical Arabic ode. In this collection, all the words of Arabic poetry seem to be incendiary. Her recollection of what happened at that time illustrates how she and others were changing the sounds of their verse to meet the contemporary demands of their souls. Poets like al-Mala'ika are working with the form of free verse in their attempt to compose a quieter and deeper poetry. Among poets of free verse, the secular is more pronounced because it reverberates in their articulation of poetry's realm, tools, and public in ways that sustain secularism's sequestering of spheres. Nine years into the Palestinian collapse of 1948, one poet, Mahmoud Darwish, published the first free verse in al-Jadid. In the narrative of another modern Arab poet, Taha al-Mutawakkil, rhythm is equated with screaming or droning. In their desire to belong to secular modernity in Palestine and elsewhere in the Arab world, poets distanced themselves from the sound of words.
Marilyn Booth
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780748696628
- eISBN:
- 9781474412254
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748696628.003.0009
- Subject:
- Literature, World Literature
This chapter examines the emergence of colloquial Arabic poetry as populist-political commentary in Egypt by offering a reading of Mahmud Bayram al-Tunisi's series of texts, which figured political ...
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This chapter examines the emergence of colloquial Arabic poetry as populist-political commentary in Egypt by offering a reading of Mahmud Bayram al-Tunisi's series of texts, which figured political contestation in the thematic-formal mould of the sira shaʻbiyya. It first provides an overview of the sira shaʻbiyya (folk epic, folk romance) before discussing at least four Bayramic sira compositions, all of which narrate the Turkish–Greek conflict over possession of Asia Minor in the context of postwar intra-European negotiations for neocolonial primacy. The texts, labelled ‘Sira Kemaliyya’, chronicle the conflict between Greece and Turkey in 1919–1922, highlighted by the exploits of Turkish ‘epic hero’ and nationalist leader Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. The chapter explains how Bayram manages the duality of heroic posturing as a heavy-handed colonialist tactic versus the effective heroism of Mustafa Kemal.Less
This chapter examines the emergence of colloquial Arabic poetry as populist-political commentary in Egypt by offering a reading of Mahmud Bayram al-Tunisi's series of texts, which figured political contestation in the thematic-formal mould of the sira shaʻbiyya. It first provides an overview of the sira shaʻbiyya (folk epic, folk romance) before discussing at least four Bayramic sira compositions, all of which narrate the Turkish–Greek conflict over possession of Asia Minor in the context of postwar intra-European negotiations for neocolonial primacy. The texts, labelled ‘Sira Kemaliyya’, chronicle the conflict between Greece and Turkey in 1919–1922, highlighted by the exploits of Turkish ‘epic hero’ and nationalist leader Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. The chapter explains how Bayram manages the duality of heroic posturing as a heavy-handed colonialist tactic versus the effective heroism of Mustafa Kemal.
Pierre Cachia
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748640867
- eISBN:
- 9780748653300
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748640867.003.0004
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Middle Eastern Studies
While modern Arabs have changed their attitude to the language in some respects, few have given serious attention to popular literature. This chapter discusses popular literature with emphasis on ...
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While modern Arabs have changed their attitude to the language in some respects, few have given serious attention to popular literature. This chapter discusses popular literature with emphasis on Mustafa Ibrahim Ajaj. Mustaf Ibrahim Ajaj was a literate who wrote in a language that the public understood. While he composed in classical Arabic and in accordance with the conventions of Arabic poetry, he used colloquial language and employed a variety of postclassical metrical forms. Most of them are in a hemistich in classical poetry which forms a complete unit, called here ‘a line’.Less
While modern Arabs have changed their attitude to the language in some respects, few have given serious attention to popular literature. This chapter discusses popular literature with emphasis on Mustafa Ibrahim Ajaj. Mustaf Ibrahim Ajaj was a literate who wrote in a language that the public understood. While he composed in classical Arabic and in accordance with the conventions of Arabic poetry, he used colloquial language and employed a variety of postclassical metrical forms. Most of them are in a hemistich in classical poetry which forms a complete unit, called here ‘a line’.
