The Cooing of the Dove and the Cawing of the Crow: Late ʿAbbāsid Poetics in Abū al-ʿAlāʾ al-Maʿarrī’s Saqṭ al-Zand and Luzūm Mā Lā Yalzam

Suzanne Pickney Stetkevych, Ph.D. (1981), The University of Chicago, is Sultan Qaboos bin Said Professor of Arabic & Islamic Studies at Georgetown University. Her publications on Classical Arabic poetry include The Mantle Odes: Arabic Praise Poems to the Prophet Muḥammad (2010).

Preface

Acknowledgments

Note on Transliteration and Translation

Abbreviations



Introduction



Introduction: Approaching Saqṭ al-Zand: The Poetics of Engagement



Part 1 The Poetics of Performance in the Late Classical Qaṣīdah



1 A Long Night’s Journey into Day: Nocturnal Passages and Celestial Journeys

 1 Introduction

 2 Section I: Nocturnes, or Lyric ‘Fragments’

 3 Section II: A Master Qaṣīdah with Nocturnal Raḥīl: A Long Night’s Journey into Day



2 Performative Poetics: The Art of Defense and the Art of Self-Defense

 1 Introduction

 2 Section I: The Art of Defense: Saqṭ al-Zand 15 Mīmiyyah

 3 Section II: The Art of Self-Defense: Saqṭ al-Zand 16 Lāmiyyah



3 The Cooing of the Dove and the Cawing of the Crow: Elegy as Performance

 1 Introduction

 2 The Cooing of the Dove: Saqṭ al-Zand 43 Dāliyyah, Rithā’ to a Ḥanafī faqīh, Abū Ḥamzah

 3 The Cawing of the Crow: Saqṭ al-Zand 60 Fāʾiyyah, Rithāʾ to al-Sharīf al-Ṭāhir al-Mūsawī



4 Yearning for Syria/Yearning for Baghdad: The Poetics of Longing and the Performance of Nostalgia

 1 Introduction

 2 SZ 58: Our Camels’ Yearning

 3 Saqṭ al-Zand 66: Greetings Worthy of Kisrā and Tubbaʿ



Part 2 Stylistic Poetics and Postclassical Aesthetics



Introduction: Approaching Al-Luzūmiyyāt: The Poetics of Disengagement and Poetry as Programmatic Project



5 Irony, Archeology, and ‘Stopping at the Ruins’: Two Readings of the Ṭasmū Luzūmiyyah

 1 Introduction

 2 Section I: Irony, Archeology, and Stopping at the Ruins

 3 Section II: Lexical Exile and the Tyranny of the Rhyme

 4 Conclusion



6 Labīd, ʿAbīd, and Lubad: Lexical Excavation and the Reclamation of the Poetic Past in Al-Luzūmiyyāt

 1 Introduction

 2 Conclusion



Conclusion: Beyond the Great Divide



Works Cited

Index