ral Tradition of Classical Arabic Poetry

331 Pages·2006·25.71 MB·English

Michael Zwettler
ral Tradition
of Classical Arabic Poetry
Its Character and Implications
•>*«
$25.00

THE ORAL TRADITION OF
CLASSICAL ARABIC POETRY
Its Character and Implications
By MichaelJ. Zwettler
Throughout centuries of Arabic literary schol­
arship, there has been little serious doubt
that pre- and early Islamic Arabic poetry was
produced and transmitted through the opera­
tion of some kind of oral tradition. What
that fact really meant, however, and what the
character and implications of such a tradition
might have been, were questions that were
seldom if ever asked. But some have been
asking them in recent years, and Professor
Zwettler asks them here as well; and he makes
a considered attempt to answer them in terms
of the "oral-formulaic" theory of poetic com­
position worked out by Milman Parry, Albert
Lord, and others.
Because of the differences between the clas­
sical Arabic qasida and the long narrative
poems on which Parry and Lord based their
theory, Dr. Zwettler proposes various adap­
tations necessary to accommodate it to the
exigencies of the early Arabic tradition, then
applies it in making an exhaustive analysis of
the presence in the famous mu 'allaqa of
Imra'alqays of the three features that Parry
and Lord have identified as distinguishing poe­
try in the oral tradition from patently literary
poems: a significantly higher proportion of
"formulas" and "formulaic usages"; a very high
incidence of end-stopped lines and a very low
incidence of what Parry calls "necessary en­
jambement"; and a series of conventional,
stereotyped themes and motifs that recur from
poem to poem.
From examination of the inflective language
known as classical Arabic, Dr. Zwettler argues,
it becomes clear that it was, in fact, a special
linguistic form peculiar to, and conditioned
by, the rhymed and metered verses of oral
(Continued on back flap)

THE

ORAL TRADITION

OF CLASSICAL ARABIC

POETRY

THE

ORAL TRADITION

OF CLASSICAL ARABIC

POETRY

Its Character and Implications
BY MICHAEL ZWETTLER
Ohio State University Press : Columbus
Copyright © 1978 by the Ohio State University Press

All Rights Reserved.

Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data
Zwettler, Michael.
The oral tradition of classical Arabic poetry.
Bibliography: p.

Includes index.

1. Arabic poetry—To 622—History and criticism. 2. Arabic poetry—622-750—History and
criticism. 3. Oral tradition—Arabia. I. Title.
PJ7541.Z9 1978 892'.7'1009 77-25386
ISBN 0-8142-0273-X
*
To my family: Janett, Robert, and
Rebecca Zwettler