Chief Characteristics of Jahiliyyaera Qasida Minimalism Homogeneity Functionality

Chief Characteristics of Jahiliyya-era Qasida: - Minimalism - Homogeneity - Functionality

Minimalism “Arabic poetry is minimalist in form. What in Shakespeare would be a soliloquy is in Arabic a line or even a hemistich. Seven lines of the Lâmiyyat al-’Arab would have provided the Greek tragedians with the plot for a full play” -Roger Allen, Early Arabic Poetry (vol. 1), p. 3

How is it a ‘Minimalist’ Literature? Networks of Association Atla l: memory, abandonment, unfulfilled (? ) love, youth, desolation, nature = eternity, humanity = ephemera, two riding companions, antisocial Na qa: patience, endurance, self-denial, self-sacrifice, the poet, desert journey, independence, sustenance

Homogeneity: A Formulaic Structure Nasi b: Amatory prelude, elegaic (intersection of love and grief motivated by departure, not death), existential wistfulness, atla l, departing womenfolk, “halting at the traces”, “effaced abodes”, room for sexuality, passivity Ri hla: Journey, agency, activity, solitude, wilderness, the desert, heat, cold, rain, wild animals, hunger, vigor, na qa, the hunt “Boast”: Society, self-assertion, interdependence, commensal feast, wine, companionship, the tribe, gentle rain, promise of pasturage

Functionality of Qasi da Ibn Salla m al-Ju mahi (d. 846 AD): In the Ja hiliyya, verse was to the Arabs the register of all they knew, and the utmost compass of their wisdom; with it they began their affairs, and with it they ended them. Ibn Rashi q (d. 1065 AD) : The poet was a defence to the honour of them all [the tribe], a weapon to ward off insult from their good name, and a means of perpetuating their glorious deeds and of establishing their fame for ever. And they used not to wish one another joy but for three things – the birth of a boy, the coming to light of a poet, and the foaling of a noble mare.