Description
Book SynopsisAn ethnographic study of Yemeni tribal poetry that reveals a folkloric system where poetry is a creation of art and a political and social act. Drawing on field research in North Yemen, it shows the significance of poetry in Yemeni society, analyzing verse genres and their use in weddings, war mediations, and political discourse on the state.
Table of ContentsList of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
A Note on Transcription
PART 1. Background
1. Doing an Ethnography of Poetry
2. Gabyilah: Ideologies of Tribalism, Language, and Poetry
3. The Social Production of Poetry
PART II. The System of Poetic Genres
4. The Biilah: Poem as Play
5. The Poetic Construction of Self
6. The Ziimil: Between Performance and Text-Utterance
7. Power, Poetry, and Persuasion
8. The Qasfdah: Individual Talent and the Cultural Tradition
9. Tribal Ideology, the State, and Communicative Practices
CONCLUSION: Poetry as Cultural Practice
APPENDIXES
A. Yemeni Tribal Arabic Phonology
B. A Linguistic Theory of Meter
C. Transcription of the Sample Balah Poem
D. Transcription of the Sample Balah Development Section
E. Transcription of al-Gharsi's Poem
F. Transcription of a~-Sufi's Poem
G. Transcription of al-Ma'lah's Poem
Notes
Bibliography
Index
