The Princeton Handbook of World Poetries

Home , Fatos Arapi, Giulio Variboba, Giuseppe Serembe, Mazisi Kunene, Migjeni, National poet

AFRICA, POETRY OF in sub-Saharan Africa. The poet invokes the Igbo river goddess, near the village where he grew I. English up: “Before you, mother Idoto / naked I stand.” II. French Reaffirming his affinity with native culture, III. Portuguese Okigbo grounds his poem in local religion and IV. Indigenous. See egypt, poetry of; ethiopia, flora (naked, he leans on the oilbean tree, sacred poetry of; hausa poetry; somali poetry; swahili to Idoto, a totem for her worship). At the same poetry; xhosa poetry; zulu poetry. time, his diction (referring to himself as “a prod- igal” further in the poem) and rhet. (“Before I. English. With the end of the colonial period you, mother Idoto”) also recall the Christian- and the advance of literacy and higher education ity that missionaries imported into Igboland. in Africa came a rapid efflorescence of Af. poetry The lyric is shaped by the Roman Catholicism written in Eng. This poetry displays the variety in which Okigbo was brought up, incl. prayers to be expected in so diverse a continent. Like to the Virgin Mary and the story of the prodi- other examples of postcolonial poetics, Af. poetry gal son. The poem’s final lines, which cry out in Eng. develops out of the fusion of indigenous to a native divinity, paradoxically echo Psalm trads. with the literary inheritances transmit- 130 (“Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, ted through the colonial lang. It is responsive to O Lord”) and Psalm 5 (“Give ear to my words, local idioms, values, and hist. and at the same O Lord. . . . Hearken unto the voice of my cry”). time remakes for Af. experience the forms and Although Af. poets are indebted to religious, styles imported through Eng. from the Brit. Isles, lyric, and other cultural forms from the West, America, and elsewhere. The adoption of the Eng. they seldom lose their awareness of Africa’s lang. for Af. purposes, while advantageous to rich oral trads. A poem such as Okot p’Bitek’s writers who wish to be heard by an international Lawino (1966) relies on Acholi songs, prov- audience, is fraught with political significance. erbs, repetitions, idioms, and oral address, even Some Af. critics contend that poetry written in a as it also draws on the model of the Western historically imperialist lang. cannot be fully disas- long poem (Okot has cited H. W. Longfellow’s sociated from colonialism’s oppressive legacy. “Hiawatha” as a key influence). An aggrieved Af. poetry written in Eng. is often seen as village woman inveighs against her husband for divided between poetry that is locally rooted and forsaking his local culture and being too enam- influenced by Af. oral trads. and cosmopolitan ored of Western ways: “Listen, Ocol, you are poetry, which is indebted primarily to Western the son of a Chief, / Leave foolish behavior to literary trads. The work of Af. poets, however, little children.” In her book-length complaint, complicates this distinction, since even the most Lawino repeatedly brandishes an Acholi prov- cosmopolitan poets, such as the Nigerian poet erb that warns against uprooting the pumpkin; Wole Soyinka, also draw on local oral trads., and in so doing, she emphasizes the importance of even the most local, such as the Ugandan poet preserving the household, as well as the oral Okot p’Bitek (1931–82), also make use of West- trads. that sustain it. ern literary models. In the wake of colonialism Between the poles marked out by Okigbo’s and under the influence of globalization, Af. highly literary, allusive, syntactically complex poetry in Eng. is inextricable from Brit., Ir., Am., early poetry and Okot’s orally based poetics of and other influences, even when in revolt against song, praise, and invective, Af. poetry has dis- the West’s values and cultural forms. Conversely, covered a multitude of ways to mediate the oral in the West, the descendants of enslaved Afri- and scribal, the local and global, the socially cans and economic migrants have fundamentally urgent protest and the private meditation. shaped poetry. Indeed, as an Oxford-trained anthropologist The first poem in the sequence “Heavens- influenced by Longfellow and the Bible, Okot gate” (1962, rev. 1964) by Nigerian poet Chris- cannot be reduced to simple nativism. And as topher Okigbo (1932–67) serves as an example a poet who absorbs drum rhythms and praise of the enmeshment of Af. and Western poetics song into his later work, Okigbo—who died

1 For general queries, contact [email protected] © Copyright, Princeton University Press. No part of this book may be distributed, posted, or reproduced in any form by digital or mechanical means without prior written permission of the publisher. 2 AFRICA, POETRY OF fighting for an independent Biafra—should (b. 1935; Reed in the Tide [1965], incl. autobio- not be seen as a Westernized sellout. Under the graphical poems; Casualties [1970], concerning influence of intensified global communication, the war between Nigeria and Biafra; A Decade of trade, education, and travel, younger poets work Tongues [1981]; State of the Union [1981], about in ever-more deeply hybrid and transnational Nigeria’s socioeconomic and political problems forms. The South Af. Lesego Rampolokeng (b. in an international context); the philosopher and 1965), e.g., draws on a global array of influences, polemicist Chinweizu (b. ca. 1935; Invocations incl. rap musicians, the Af. Am. Last Poets, and Admonitions [1986]); the Nobel laureate Jamaican dub poet Mutabaruka, and Jamaican- Wole Soyinka (b. 1934; Idanre [1967], based on born Brit. reggae poet Linton Kwesi Johnson, to Yoruba mythology; Shuttle in the Crypt [1971]; mount a vehement social critique of his country Mandela’s Earth and Other Poems [1988]; and both before and after apartheid. a number of plays that contain poetry); Odia From the period of Af. decolonization, first Ofeimun (b. 1947; The Poet Lied [1989], Dreams formally achieved in anglophone Africa with at Work [2000]); Niyi Osundare (b. 1947; Vil- Ghana’s independence in 1957, to today’s strug- lage Voices [1984], The Eye of the Earth [1986], gle against both external economic imperialism Waiting Laughters [1990], The Word Is an Egg and the internalized colonialism of dictators [2004]); and Tanure Ojaide (b. 1948; Labyrinths and tyrants, oral and other traditional poetry of the Delta [1986], The Endless Song [1988], In has strongly influenced Af. Eng. poems. The the House of Words [2006]). imprint of Af. oral culture is visible in such Among Ghanaians, experiments in the trans. fundamental elements as the poet’s stance as and adaptation of indigenous poetic forms have defender of communal values; allusions to the been common, as in the works of Kofi Awoonor hist., customs, and artifacts of the culture; and (1935–2013; Rediscovery [1964], in which Ewe the architectonic features adapted from praise funeral dirges are brought into Eng.; Night of song, proverbial tale, epic, invective, and indig- My Blood [1971], both autobiographical and enous prayer. Experiments in the transmutation political; Ride Me, Memory [1973], in which of traditional Af. poetic forms into Eng. vary a Ghanaian abroad reflects on his country; with the culture represented. The House by the Sea [1978]; Guardians of the Arising in the aftermath of modernism, Sacred Word [1978], a collection of Ewe poetry); much Af. Eng. poetry eschews meter and rhyme Kofi Anyidoho (b. 1947; Elegy for the Revolu- in favor of free verse, often ornamented by allit- tion [1978], A Harvest of Our Dreams [1985], eration and assonance, although rap’s influence Ancestral Logic and Caribbean Blues [1992]); has spawned intensely rhymed and rhythmic and Atukwei ( John) Okai (b. 1941; The Oath verse. Poems that are meant to speak to, or for, of the Fontomfrom [1971], whose title poem Af. communities avoid extended conceits unless refers to a royal drum that beats out the hist. of they are buttressed by hard or sardonic reason a society; Lorgorligi Logarithms [1974]; Freedom or concrete imagery. Symphony [2008], love poems). Closer to West- ern trads. of sensibility and structure are others A. West Africa. West Africa, particularly Nigeria such as Kwesi Brew (1924–2007; The Shadows and Ghana, has the oldest and most influential of Laughter [1968], African Panorama [1981], trad. of sophisticated poetry in Eng. This lyric Return of No Return [1995], The Clan of the poetry combines audacious leaps of thought and Leopard [1996]), A. W. Kayper-Mensah (1923– individualized expression with social responsibil- 80; The Dark Wanderer [1970]; The Drummer ity; it privileges the metaphysical, religious, and in Our Time [1975], concerning Africa’s view of social concepts of its own society, although it Europe; Sankofa: Adinkra Poems [1976]; Proverb also draws on concepts indigenous to Eur. cul- Poems [1976]), and Frank Kobina Parkes (1932– tural hist. When social protest is overt, it is usu- 2004; Songs from the Wilderness [1965]). ally presented with intellectual and artistic com- A notable poet of Gambia was Lenrie Peters plexity rather than simplistic fervor. Exemplary (1932–2009; Satellites [1967], poems about Nigerian poets and their principal works include human rights in the broadest sense; Katchikali the country’s oldest active poet Gabriel Okara (b. [1971], which takes its name from a sacred place 1921; The Fisherman’s Invocation [1978], written in Bakau, where the coast of Gambia juts into against the background of civil war); Christo- the North Atlantic; Selected Poetry [1981]). pher Okigbo (Labyrinths [1971], incl. the pro- Prominent poets of Sierra Leone include Syl phetic sequence “Path of Thunder”); J. P. Clark Cheney-Coker (b. 1945; Concerto for an Exile

[1973]; The Graveyard Also Has Teeth [1980]; and Other Poems from a South African Prison The Blood in the Desert’s Eyes [1990]) and Lem- [1968]; Poems from Algiers [1970]; A Simple uel Johnson (1940–2002; Highlife for Caliban Lust [1973], the collection that marked Bru- [1973]; Hand on the Navel [1978]). tus’s turn from artifice toward a plain style; China Poems [1975]; Stubborn Hope [1978]; Sa- B. East Africa. East Af. poetry is dominated lutes and Censures [1982]; Leafdrift [2005]). In by two styles. One originated in Okot p’Bitek’s Brutus’s poetry, the speaker is often an observer trans. and adaptation of his own Acholi poetry. combining passionate concern with reflective Okot (Song of Lawino, the lament of a rural wife distance, and the imagery portrays monstrous over encroaching Westernization; Song of Ocol abuse in natural and social settings of oblivious [1970], her husband’s reply; “Song of Prisoner” serenity. Even after the ending of apartheid, [1971], a commentary on Kenyan politics; “Song Brutus continued to write poetry that champi- of Malaya” [1971], a critique of sexual morality) oned a more just social order than South Africa was probably the most widely read poet of Af- achieved as a new democracy. rica in the later 20th c. Through long rhetori- The experimental adaptation of regional Af. cal monologues usually narrated by a victim of forms to original poetry in the Eng. lang. is modernization, these poems express social com- well represented by the work of Mazisi Kunene mentary with lucid, graphic imagery, humorous (1930–2006; Zulu Poems [1970]; Emperor Shaka irony, and paradoxical common sense. Another the Great: A Zulu Epic [1979], an adaptation of Ugandan poet who makes extensive use of Af. a traditional epic; Anthem of the Decades [1981]; proverbs and folk culture is Okello Oculi (b. and The Ancestors and the Sacred Mountain 1942; Orphan [1968], an allegorical account of [1982]). Af. culture’s removal from traditional values; Keroapetse Kgositsile (b. 1938; Spirits Un- Malak [1976], a narrative poem about the dicta- chained [1969]; For Melba [1970]; My Name tor Idi Amin’s Uganda; Kookolem [1978], about Is Afrika [1971]; The Present Is a Dangerous the intersection of social and domestic oppres- Place to Live [1975]; To the Bitter End [1995]; sion; Song for the Sun in Us [2000]). This Way I Salute You [2004]) and the broadly An alternative style, more obviously indebted popular Oswald Mtshali (b. 1940; Sounds of a to West Af. poetry, uses asyndeton, subtle imag- Cowhide Drum [1971]; Fireflames [1980]) are ery, and erudite allusions to convey a mor- forerunners of the dramatic change in and dant and individualized vision of mod. life. It copious output of Af. poetry after 1970. The includes a wider range of subjects, tones, and influence of Af. Am. musical and poetic forms, frames of reference. Preeminent poets include esp. jazz, rap, blues, and the renaissance of the the Kenyan Jared Angira (b. 1947; Juices [1970]; 1960s, looking back to the Harlem Ren., is Silent Voices [1972]; Soft Corals [1973]; Cascades often evident. Immediacy may be reinforced [1979]; The Years Go By [1980]), the Ugandan by incl. phrases from South Af. langs. or Afri- Richard Ntiru (b. 1946; Tensions [1971]), and kaans or by directly addressing the reader as a the South Sudanese Taban lo Liyong (b. 1939; compatriot. Major writers include poets who Meditations in Limbo [1970]; Frantz Fanon’s wrote in solidarity with the Black Conscious- Uneven Ribs [1971]; Another Nigger Dead [1972]; ness movement’s emphasis on the affirmation Ballads of Underdevelopment [1976]; Another of black cultural values in the face of state- Last Word [1990]). based terror and oppression, such as Mongane Serote (b. 1944; Yakhal’Inkomo [1972]; Tsetlo C. Southern Africa. Before the abolition of [1974]; No Baby Must Weep [1975]; Behold apartheid, Eng.-lang. South Af. poetry was Mama, Flowers [1978]; The Night Keeps Wink- most concerned with subjugation, courage, ing [1982]; Freedom Lament and Song [1997]; poverty, prisons, revolt, and the private griefs History Is the Home Address [2004]); Sipho of public injustice. South Af. poets writing in Sepamla (1932–2007; Hurry Up to It! [1975]; Eng. before the 1970s were often exiles, whose The Soweto I Love [1977]; From Gorée to works, therefore, also reflected Brit. or Am. Soweto [1988]); Mafika Pascal Gwala (b. 1946; experience—e.g., Arthur Nortje (1942–70; Jol’iinkomo [1977]; No More Lullabies [1982]); Dead Roots [1973]), Cosmo Pieterse (b. 1930; James Matthews (b. 1929; Cry Rage [1972]; No Echo and Choruses: “Ballad of the Cells” [1974]), Time for Dreams [1977]; Flames and Flowers and esp. Dennis Brutus (1924–2009; Sirens, [2000]; Age Is a Beautiful Phase [2008]); Dan- Knuckles and Boots [1963]; Letters to Martha iel P. Kunene (b. 1923; Pirates Have Become Our

Kings [1978]; A Seed Must Seem to Die [1981]); as a manifestation of religious forces but is and the jazz-influenced Wopko Pieter Jensma also treated with a more direct, nonsymbolic (b. 1939; Sing for Our Execution [1973]; Where sensibility than in other Af. poetry. Poet and White Is the Colour Where Black Is the Number personae are more closely identified with their [1974]; I Must Show You My Clippings [1977]). community through a diction that relies on Postapartheid poets in South Africa include direct address to the reader as putative interloc- Ingrid de Kok (b. 1951; Familiar Ground utor, conversational apostrophe, quiet humor, [1988], Transfer [1997], Terrestrial Things anaphora, and avoidance of strident effects. [2002]), Kelwyn Sole (b. 1951; The Blood of Esoteric lyricism and declamation are both Our Silence [1988], Projections in the Past Tense rare. The stresses that urban cultures impose on [1992], Love That Is Night [1998], Mirror and rural life and on personal values and identity are Water Gazing [2001]), Gail Dendy (b. 1957; common themes, as well as the systemic effects Assault and the Moth [1993]), Gabeba Bad- of colonial and postcolonial hegemony. In form eroon (b. 1969; The Dream in the Next Body and themes, the poetry of this region adapts [2005], The Museum of Ordinary Life [2005], Eng. to provide sophisticated but unaffected A Hundred Silences [2006]), and the perfor- articulation of traditional Af. worldviews in a mance poet Rampolokeng (Horns for Hondo context of rapid social change. [1990], Rap Master Supreme—Word Bomber Af. poetry in Eng. displays an immense cul- in the Extreme [1997], The Bavino Sermons tural and personal variety. Sometimes written [1999]). See south africa, poetry of. in an engaged and earnest tone, frequently leav- Politics and economics have denied a wide ened by humor, it maintains close identification international audience to the poetry of South with communal values and experience while Africa’s anglophone neighbors. Malawian fig- conveying personal perceptions and global ures include David Rubadiri (b. 1930; An Afri- influences. Inventively hybridizing Eng. poetic can Thunderstorm [2004]), Frank M. Chipasula forms with indigenous cultural resources, Af. (b. 1949; Visions and Reflections [1972]; O Earth poetry in Eng. is true to a mod. Af. experience Wait for Me [1984]; Nightwatcher, Nightsong that straddles Western and Af. metaphysical, [1986]; Whispers in the Wings [2001]), Jack ethical, and aesthetic visions. Mapanje (b. 1944; Of Chameleons and Gods [1981], Beasts of Nalunga [2007]), and Steve II. French. The rise of Af. poetry in Fr. cannot Chimombo (b. 1945; A Referendum of the For- be understood without reference to the slave est Creatures [1993], Napolo and Other Poems trade and the subsequent colonization of Af- [2009]). rica, the cultural politics France and Belgium Notable Zambian poets are Richard A. imposed during their years of occupation, and Chima (b. 1945; The Loneliness of a Drunkard multiple forms of resistance to these conditions. [1973]) and Patu Simoko (b. 1951; Africa Is It is no accident that New World writers Made of Clay [1978]). are usually included in studies and anthols. of Zimbabwe has produced copious poetry Af. poetry in Fr. Both Africans and Af. Ameri- reflecting both the price of liberating warfare cans had to confront the same racist oppres- and the consequences of victory. Preeminent sion. Theyaccor dingly made common cause poets include Samuel Chimsoro (b. 1949; Smoke and sought out each other for inspiration and and Flames [1978]), Musaemura Zimunya (b. 1949; readership, despite real differences. Hence, the Thought Tracks [1982], Kingfisher, Jikinya and Other importance of Harlem Ren. figures such as Poems [1982], Country Dawns and City Lights Langston Hughes and Claude McKay to the [1985]), Mudereri Kadhani (b. 1952; Quarantine founders of Negritude, the first coherent Af. lit- Rhythms [1976]), Chenjerai Hove (b. 1956; Up erary and intellectual movement, which can be in Arms [1982], Red Hills of Home [1984], Blind dated to the 1930s. Of the founders of the first Moon [2004]), and Freedom Nyamubaya (b. important literary review, L’Étudiant Noir (The 1960; On the Road Again [1986]). Black Student), Aimé Césaire (1913–2008) With important national and individual of Martinique, Léon G. Damas (1912–78) differences, the poetry of southern Africa still of French Guiana, and Léopold Sédar Seng- has an identifiable character. It is often pre- hor (1906–2001) of Senegal, only the last was mised on an intense affinity for the land and, from Africa itself, and all three were students through that, a close union between the spiri- in Paris. This tendency toward cross-fertiliza- tual and physical worlds. Nature is presented tion with other black lits. made Af. poetry in

Fr. intercontinental in scope. Though Césaire has been confirmed by Senghor’s weighty Oeu- and Senghor and later poets repeatedly dem- vres complètes (Complete Works, 2006) and the onstrated their mastery of Fr. trad., they were volumes that marked Césaire’s 90th birthday in drawn both to other lits. from what was then 2003. Yet, already in 1966, the anthol. by the called the third world and to indigenous Af. publisher Présence Africaine, Nouvelle somme lits. The desire to embrace and renew tradi- de poésie du monde noir (A New Survey of the tional Af. poetic practice, expressed rhetorically Poetry of the Black World), can be seen as a by the proponents of Negritude, has become more ambiguous and ambitious poetic project increasingly important among subsequent gen- than those rooted in early Negritude. Foremost erations, who are, however, aware of the diffi- among the poets from that generation was Tchi- culties such hybrid literary forms present. caya U’Tamsi (1931–88), whose dense and diffi- There is no exhaustive definition for the term cult oeuvre combined contemp. techniques with Negritude. Coined by Césaire in his 1939 Cahier an anguished concern for the Congo and the rav- d’un retour au pays natal (Notebook of a Return ages of neocolonialism, esp. in his 1962 Epitomé. to the Native Land ), it was, in his words, “the The number of retrospective eds. that followed simple recognition of the fact that one is black, his death is a mark of his influence, and it is the acceptance of this fact and of our destiny often against the dominating figure of Tchicaya as blacks, of our history and our culture.” Yet that later Af. Fr.-lang. poets are measured, not there is nothing simple about this statement; only his fellow Congolese (Brazzaville) J. B. Tati- its implications are manifold, and the poetry Loutard (1938–2009, Oeuvres poétiques [2007]) that sought to express it took many different and Sony Labou Tansi (1947–95), but, e.g. the forms, from Damas’s explosive Pigments (1937) Ivorian Jean-Marie Adiaffi (1941–99), and the to Césaire’s virulent defense of black culture in Senegalese Amadou Lamine Sall (b. 1951) and his Cahier to Senghor’s lofty exaltation of Af. Hamidou Dia (b. 1953). values beginning with his 1945 Chants d’ombre Over the past three decades, Af. poetry in (Shadow Songs). The landmark anthol. of Negri- Fr., while still continental in scope, has become tude poetry came three years later, Senghor’s more self-consciously local, more often related Anthologie de la nouvelle poésie nègre et malgache to the national trads. of the individual poets. de langue française (Anthology of New Black Starting with Tati-Loutard’s 1976 Anthologie and Malagasy Poetry in the French Language, de la littérature congolaise d’expression française 1948), with its influential preface by Jean-Paul (Anthology of Congolese Literature in French), Sartre, “Orphée noir” (“Black Orpheus”). there began to appear critical works and col- In Sartre’s view, Negritude was but an antith- lections of poetry representing the increasingly esis, a second phase of reaction to white racism self-defining national lits. of Benin (1984), that, while defending the specificity of black Cameroon (1982), Gabon (1978), the Ivory culture, did so in view of a final synthesis, the Coast (1983), and Togo (1980), among oth- transition to a universal (in Sartre’s version, ers. This parceling up of a subcontinent into proletarian) culture with no oppressors and, national lits. reflects the rise of distinct national ultimately, no specificity. Sartre’s perspective identities across Africa and inevitably points to was at odds with that of Senghor himself, who conflicts among them. In time, African litera- had in mind a less politicized universality, but ture will seem as broad and as vague a concept the former set the grounds for Frantz Fanon’s as European literature, the internal differences typology of postcolonial cultures in Les Damnés within Africa nuancing the abstract and often de la terre (The Wretched of the Earth, 1961), one racially defined concept of a single continental- on which most interpretations of postcolonial wide identity. lit. hist. implicitly repose: a dialectical move- One prominent thematic thread of contemp. ment from a colonial period of slavish imita- Af. poetry in Fr. is the experience of exile or emi- tion of Western models to a period of revolt, gration, which has affected not only the intel- exemplified by Negritude, and then a postinde- lectual elite that write and read poetry in Fr. pendence period in which Africans have taken but Africans of all origins from across the conti- control of their own culture, though not with- nent. This contemp. state of exile can readily be out outside interference. related back to the original diasporic displace- Damas died relatively young, but Seng- ment brought about by the slave trade, hence, hor and Césaire lived until the 21st c., and the the continuing relevance of Césaire’s Cahier and canonical status of their version of Negritude the preoccupation with Af. cultural identity

For general queries, contact [email protected] © Copyright, Princeton University Press. No part of this book may be distributed, posted, or reproduced in any form by digital or mechanical means without prior written permission of the publisher. 6 AFRICA, POETRY OF both at home and in the growing Af. communi- Espontaneidades da minha alma (Outpourings ties around the world, in E urope but also in the from My Soul) in 1849. The work is probably Americas. It is, thus, not at all uncommon for a the first collection of poems printed in the Congolese poet like Alain Mabanckou (b. 1966) sub-Saharan region. With the independence to find inspiration not only in his homeland of Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, Guinea- but in the large Af. community in Paris, and Bissau, and São Tomé e Príncipe, five increas- thereafter among Af.-Americans in Los Angeles. ingly diverse national poetries were born, Similarly, Véronique Tadjo (b. 1955) was born in written mainly in Port. but also, in the case of Paris but was raised in the Ivory Coast, which Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, and São Tomé, in continues to inspire her poetry. Rare in fact is local Port.-based creoles. the Af. poet writing in Fr. who does not have Precursors of these national poetics, such as a foothold on two continents: the Senegalese Silva Maia Ferreira; Joaquim Cordeiro da Matta Babacar Sall (Dakar/Paris), Léopold Congo (1857–94), a black Angolan poet; and Caetano Mbemba (Brazzaville/Paris), and Amadu Eli- da Costa Alegre (1864–90) from the island of mane Kane (Senegal/Paris). This is as much the São Tomé, wrote verse modeled on Eur. styles case for female as for male poets, Tanella Boni and themes, though often informed by an Af. (Abidjan/Toulouse) and Clémentine Faïk-Nzuji consciousness. Some wrote verse reflecting their (Kinshasa/Brussels) being additional salient sense of social reformism and dedication to cases among the former. Port. liberalism. They did not propose indepen- Many observers think that, despite the con- dence for the colonies so much as a more pro- tinuing hegemony of Paris as a cultural center, gressive Port. empire. Beginning in the 1930s writing in Fr. outside France is destined to in the Cape Verde Islands and in the 1950s assume as important a role as writing in Eng. in Angola and Mozambique, however, poems beyond the U.S. and Britain. Af. poetr y in Fr. is of cultural legitimization and growing social arguably one of the richest sources of this litté- protest, fanned by the winds of nationalism, rature-monde (lit. of the world in Fr.). This is a characterized the literary movements initiated less categorical claim perhaps than that made by by members of an emerging black and mestiço Sartre in 1948—that Af. and Antillean poetries (mixed-race) intelligentsia and their Af.-born or were the only true “revolutionary” poetries of -raised white allies. those times. But the variety of poetic experience On the largely mestiço Cape Verde Islands, conveyed by Af. poets in Fr. confirms that Af. a trio of poets—Jorge Barbosa (1902–71), cultures can speak universally with force and Oswaldo Alcântara (pseud. of Baltasar Lopes authenticity (see caribbean, poetry of the da Silva, 1907–89), and Manuel Lopes (1907– [French]; france, poetry of). 2005)—founded in 1936 what became known as the Claridade movement, named after the III. Portuguese. Af. poetry in Port. is often group’s arts and culture jour. Under the influ- known as Lusophone Af. poetry, although some ence of Brazilian modernism and northeast resist the term Lusophone, claiming it contains regionalism, they codified the islands’ Creole colonial overtones. This was arguably the first ethos, giving artistic expression to the prevail- Af. poetry in a Eur. lang. to be published. Some ing Cape Verdean themes of solitude, the sea, facetious critics claim the 16th-c. Port. national drought, and emigration. This generation bard Luís de Camões as the first Port. Af. poet, reacted to the universalism of poets such as José pointing to his descriptions of the continent in Lopes (1871–1962), who as well as publishing his literary epic The Lusiads (1572). The ques- poetry in Port., wrote poems in Fr. and Eng. and tion of who qualifies as an Af. poet of Port. defended the concept of a global Port. nation. expression became contentious in the period In the Angolan cities of Benguela and esp. immediately following the independence of Luanda, a thinly veiled nationalist poetics the former colonies (1973–75), when the newly emerged (censorship and police repression formed nations sought to define their own liter- precluded outspoken militancy) among black, ary canons and claim historical roots that con- mestiço, and a few white poets, some of whom tested Port. cultural hegemony. would form the nucleus of the Movement of It is generally accepted that José da Silva the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), founded in Maia Ferreira (1827–81?), born in Angola and 1956. Poets like Agostinho Neto (1922–79), of Port. heritage, was the first poet published who was Angola’s first president; Viriato da in Port.-speaking Africa when he released his Cruz (1928–73); António Jacinto (1924–91);

Fernando Costa Andrade (1936–2009); and to dictate their aesthetic programs, Craveir- Mário António Fernandes de Oliveira (1934– inha repeatedly demonstrated how a profound 89) produced poems that called for an inde- lyricism could serve the political causes he sup- pendent Angola. Many militant poets, in ported. He was capable of exceptionally mov- Mozambique as well as Angola, were also guer- ing love poetry as well as political demands to rilla fighters. Others fled into exile or paid for address inequalities and social injustice. their militancy with imprisonment. Many of the Port. Af. poets who wrote in Throughout the 1960s until the 1974 mili- the years leading to independence spent some tary coup that toppled the colonial government of their formative years in Lisbon. Not surpris- in Lisbon, much Af. poetry in Port. was pro- ingly, Lusophone Negritude poetry appeared duced underground. Militants distributed their there, where these poets shared ideas and influ- poems clandestinely or published them abroad. ences. Most notably, Francisco José Tenreiro Neto wrote surreptitiously in his prison cell in (1921–63), a mestiço from the island of São Portugal and managed to smuggle his poems Tomé who lived most of his life in the Port. out of the Aljube prison to Kinshasa, Dar es capital, emerged as the greatest writer of Negri- Salaam, Milan, and Belgrade, where they were tude poetry in Port. Under the influence of the published in bilingual eds. Only after indepen- Harlem Ren., Afro-Cuban Negrism, and fran- dence did these poets emerge from secrecy and cophone poets such as Senghor and Césair e, “return” legitimately to Angola. Tenreiro wrote the poems published post- In Mozambique, during the two decades humously as Coração em África (My Heart in before national independence, a few Europeans Africa, 1964). produced poetry that was a conscious part more Some Angolan writers have proclaimed of Port. lit. than of Mozambique’s incipient that their poetry was born in the struggle for cultural expression. Starting in the 1960s, these liberation, while Negritude was conceived in Euro-Mozambicans, most notably Rui Knopfli defeat as a Eur.-based phenomenon that had (1933–97), born and raised in the colonial city little to do with Africa. During the decade of of Lourenço Marques (now Maputo), sought to anticolonialist wars in Angola, Mozambique, represent the essence of an Afro-Eur. experience. and Guinea-Bissau, poetry became increasingly After Mozambican independence, a debate combative and tendentious. Marcelino dos raged within the new nation’s cultural elite as to Santos (b. 1929), a high-ranking member of the whether the work of poets like Knopfli belonged Mozambique Liberation Movement (Frelimo), in an emerging national canon, with most con- who became its vice president, was at the fore- sidering him Port. rather than Mozambican, a front of militant poets who wrote pamphletary position he contested. As might be expected, verse that, during the protracted war, served as a poetry of Af. cultural and racial essential- a didactic instrument as well as a goad to politi- ism, whether by black or mixed-race Mozam- cal mobilization. Not noted for its aestheticism, bicans, coincided with the rise of nationalism the poetry of this generation is a valuable his- in the 1950s and 1960s. The mestiço poets torical document tracing the ideological con- José Craveirinha (1922–2003) and Noémia de cerns of the liberation movement. Sousa (1926–2003) both wrote a number of In the early years after independence, a mul- memorable poems of cultural revindication. tiracial array of poets began seeking new ways Many of the arguments used to exclude Knopfli to capture poetically the changed realities of from the Mozambican canon, most notably his their nations. In Angola, Manuel Rui (b. 1941) absence from postindependence Mozambique, emerged as one of the most important poetic could equally well apply to de Sousa, who spent voices of his generation, writing the verses of much of her life in Europe. However, few read- the Angolan national anthem. He later concen- ers contest her place in the poetic canon of trated on prose but always in a highly poeticized Mozambique. way. Similarly, Mia Couto (b. 1955) of Mozam- Craveirinha, Mozambique’s most celebrated bique is a poet who became more famous for writer, is considered one of the greatest Port.- his extremely lyrical prose. His ling. innovation lang. poets of the 20th c. In 2001, he won the is so profound and celebrated that it is difficult Prémio Camões, the highest award granted to categorize him as anything other than a poet. for lifetime literary contributions to the Port. Alda do Espírito Santo (1926–2010), like Rui lang. Unlike many Mozambican poets of his in Angola, provided the lyrics of the national generation, who allowed their political dogmas anthem of São Tomé e Príncipe and became

For general queries, contact [email protected] © Copyright, Princeton University Press. No part of this book may be distributed, posted, or reproduced in any form by digital or mechanical means without prior written permission of the publisher. 8 AFRICA, POETRY OF a major literary and political presence in her Artur (b. 1962), and Eduardo White (b. 1964); nation, rising to become the speaker of São and from Cape Verde, José L. Hopffer Almada Tomé’s parliament. In most of the newly inde- (b. 1960), who organized Mirabilis, an anthol. pendent nations, poetry and politics went hand of work by some 60 island poets (pub. 1991). in hand. This politicized poetry had been born Tavares’s work has become increasingly popular of the independence struggles and continued in and more sophisticated. Alongside Conceição the early years of independence in the service Lima (b. 1961) from São Tomé, Vera Duarte (b. of the state. However, it soon became obvious to 1952) and Dina Salústia (b. 1941) from Cape the practitioners of poetry that the new realities Verde, and Odete Costa Semedo (b. 1959) from of independence demanded a different kind of Guinea-Bissau, Tavares has demonstrated that poetics, and the next generation of poets became successful and popular poetry in Port.-speaking less aligned with, or compromised by, the failings Africa is no longer the preserve of men. Indeed, of the liberation movements now in power. women have produced some of the most inno- The imperative of new poetic discourses vative poetry in the Port. lang. in recent years. reflecting a changed political reality led Rui, See brazil, poetry of; portugal, poetry of. along with fellow Angolans such as Arlindo JJ English. Anthologies: West African Verse, ed. Barbeitos (b. 1940), Rui Duarte de Carv- D. Nwoga (1966); Poems from East Africa, ed. alho (1941–2010), Jofre Rocha (b. 1941), and D. Cook et al. (1971); The Word Is Here: Poetry David Mestre (1948–97), to experiment with from Modern Africa, ed. K. Kgositsile (1973); new styles of poetry, which followed politi- Poems of Black Africa, ed. W. Soyinka (1975); cal prescriptions less and challenged aesthetic A World of Their Own: South African Poets of boundaries more. Two of these poets, Duarte the Seventies, ed. S. Gray (1976); Introduc- de Carvalho and Mestre, were born in Portu- tion to East African Poetry, ed. J. Kariara et al. gal, where Mestre died. In Mozambique, Rui (1977); Zimbabwean Poetry in English, ed. K. Z. Nogar (1933–93) and Luis Carlos Patraquim Muchemwa (1978); African Poetry in English, (b. 1953); in Cape Verde, Corsino Fortes (b. ed. S. H. Burton et al. (1979); Summons: Poems 1933), Oswaldo Osório (b. 1937), and Armé- from Tanzania, ed. R. S. Mabala (1980); Some- nio Vieira (b. 1941); in Guinea-Bissau, Helder how We Survive, ed. S. Plumpp (1982); The Proença (b. 1956); and in São Tomé, Frederico Return of the Amasi Bird, ed. T. Couzens et al. Gustavo dos Anjos (b. 1954) have all attempted, (1982); A New Book of African Verse, ed. J. Reed with varying degrees of success, to shift poetic et al. (1984); The Heritage of African Poetry, ed. boundaries away from a collective voice of pro- I. Okpewho (1984); When My Brothers Come test to a more introspective interrogation of the Home: Poems from Central and Southern Africa, poetic self. In Angola, Duarte de Carvalho has ed. F. M. Chipasula (1985); The Fate of Vultures, experimented with an integrated form of Af. ed. M. Zimunya et al. (1989); The Heinemann oral expression and Brazilian concrete poetry, as Book of African Poetry in English, ed. A. Maja- well as repeatedly playing with the boundaries Pearce (1990); The New African Poetry, ed. between literary genres. T. Ojaide and T. M. Sallah (1999); The Penguin Since independence, a number of poets have Book of Modern African Poetry, ed. G. Moore emerged in each of the five Port.-speaking Af. and U. Beier, 5th ed. (2007); Bending the Bow: countries, inflecting the Port. lang. in ways An Anthology of African Love Poetry, ed. F. Chi- that are often indebted to oral trads. local to pasula (2009). Bibliographies: Bibliography of their nations. At the same time, from the 1980s Creative African Writing, ed. J. Janheinz et al. onward, and perhaps in response to a nascent (1971); Black African Literature in English, ed. questioning of the failure to realize the promises B. Lindfors (1979); New Reader’s Guide to Af- of independence, poetry from Port.-speaking rican Literature, ed. H. M. Zell et al., 2d ed. Africa has taken a decidedly self-interrogating (1983); Supplement to Black African Literature turn. Salient practitioners of this different type in English, 1977–1982, ed. B. Lindfors (1985); of poetics, which owes much to Af. and Eur. her- Companion to South African English Litera- itages but also to the political failures and civil ture, ed. D. Adey et al. (1986). Criticism and strife, include the following: from Angola, Rui History: A. Roscoe, Mother Is Gold: A Study Augusto (b. 1958), Ana Paula Tavares (b. 1952), of West African Literature (1971); O. R. Da- José Luís Mendonça (b. 1955), and Ana de San- thorne, The Black Mind: A History of African tana (b. 1960); from Mozambique, Luís Carlos Literature (1974); K. Awoonor, The Breast of Patraquim, Hélder Muteia (b. 1960), Armando the Earth (1975); R. N. Egudu, Four Modern

West African Poets (1977); A. Roscoe, Uhuru’s JJ Portuguese. Anthologies: No reino de Cali- Fire: African Literature East to South (1977); ban: Antologia panorâmica da poesia africana de G. Moore, Twelve African Writers (1980); K. expressão portuguesa, ed. M. Ferreira, 3 v. (1975– L. Goodwin, Understanding African Poetry: A 86); Antologia temática de poesia africana, ed. Study of Ten Poets (1982); J. Alvarez-Pereyre, The M. de Andrade, 2 v. (1976–79); Poems from An- Poetry of Commitment in South Africa, trans. gola, ed. and trans. M. Wolfers (1979); A Horse Clive Wake (1984); A. Z. Davies and F. Strat- of White Clouds, ed. and trans. D. Burness ton, How to Teach Poetry: An African Perspective (1989); For Vasco: Poems from Guinea-Bissau, (1984); T. O. McLoughlin and F. R. Mhonyera, trans. A.R.L. Fernandes et al. (2006). Bibliog- Insights: An Introduction to the Criticism of Zim- raphy: Bibliografia das literaturas africanas de babwean and Other Poetry (1984); T. Olafioye, expressão portuguesa, ed. G. Moser and M. Fer- Politics in African Poetry (1984); U. Barnett, A reira (1983). Criticism and History: G. Moser, Vision of Order: A Study of Black South African Essays in Portuguese-African Literature (1969); Literature in English (1914–1980) (1985); Euro- R. Hamilton, Voices from an Empire: A History pean-Language Writing in Sub-Saharan Africa, of Afro-Portuguese Literature (1975); M. Fer- ed. A. S. Gérard, 2 v. (1986); R. Fraser, West reira, Literatura africana de expressão portuguesa, African Poetry: A Critical History (1986); A. Mc- 2 v. (1977); R. Hamilton, Literatura africana, Clintock, “ ‘Azikwelwa’ (We Will Not Ride): literatura necessária, 2 v. (1981–83); The Postcolo- Politics and Value in Black South African Po- nial Literature of Lusophone Africa, ed. P. Chabal etry,” CritI 13 (1987); E. Ngara, Ideology and et al. (1996). Form in African Poetry (1990); K. A. Appiah, D. F. Dorsey, J. Ramazani (Eng.); In My Father’s House (1992); T. Ojaide, “New G. Lang (Fr.); Trends in Modern African Poetry,” Research in R. G. Hamilton, P. Rothwell (Port.) African Literatures 26 (1995); Companion to African Literatures, ed. D. Killam and R. Rowe AFRIKAANS POETRY. See south africa, (2000); A. Irele, The African Imagination poetry of (2001); J. Ramazani, The Hybrid Muse: Post- colonial Poetry in English (2001); R. S. Patke, AKKADIAN POETRY. See assyria and baby- Postcolonial Poetry in English (2006); A. A. Ros- lonia, poetry of coe, The Columbia Guide to Central African Lit- erature in English since 1945 (2007); S. Gikandi AL-ANDALUS, POETRY OF. Opinions are and E. Mwangi, The Columbia Guide to East divided as to whether the Ar. poetry of the Ibe- African Literature in English since 1945 (2007); rian peninsula is truly distinctive within the J. Ramazani, A Transnational Poetics (2009); general field of Ar. poetry. Some scholars point S. Egya, “Art and Outrage: A Critical Survey of to the prominence of specific themes, such as Recent Nigerian Poetry in English,” Research in nature and descriptions of flowers and gardens, African Literatures 42 (2011). as well as to the two types of strophic poem JJ French. Anthologies: Anthologie négro-afric- that originated in Al-Andalus, as evidence of aine, ed. L. Kesteloot (1967); Poètes d’Afrique the distinctiveness of Ar. poetry; some (Pérès, et des Antilles, ed. H. Dia (2002); Nouvelle García Gómez [1946], Armistead [1980], Mon- anthologie africaine: La poesie, ed. J. Chevrier roe) claim that it reflects a native Iberian trad. (2002); Nouvelle anthologie africaine II: La poe- preserved continuously from the Roman period sie, ed. J. Chevrier (2006). Criticism and His- and reemerging later in the poetry of Spain and tory: R. Cornevin, Littératures d’Afrique noire de Portugal. Others point to the continuity of the langue française (1976); A. S. Gérard, European- forms, rhetorical patterns, and themes prevailing Writing in Sub-Saharan Africa, 2 v. (1986); Dic- in Al-Andalus with those of the Abbasid Empire tionnaire des oeuvres littérature négro-africaines de (750–1258): most poems are monorhymed, are langue française, ed. A. Kom (1983); A. Rouch set in quantitative meter according to certain and G. Clavreuil, Littératures nationales d’écriture canonical patterns, are phrased in cl. Ar., and française (1986); J. Chevrier, Littérature nègre employ the rhetorical figures associated with (1999); “Que peut la poésie aujourd’hui?” spec. neoclassical Abbasid verse. iss. Africultures 24 (2000); P. Nganang, Manifeste The literary dependence of Al-Andalus on d’une nouvelle littérature africaine (2007); L. Kes- Abbasid Baghdad is epitomized in the career teloot, Les écrivains noirs de langue française, 2d of Abū al-H˘assanAlī ibn Nafayni (known as ed. (2010). Ziryāb), a 9th-c. ce Iranian polymath who,

For general queries, contact [email protected] © Copyright, Princeton University Press. No part of this book may be distributed, posted, or reproduced in any form by digital or mechanical means without prior written permission of the publisher. 10 AL-ANDALUS, POETRY OF arriving in Córdoba, used the prestige of his influence of Romance verse forms reflected in origins to set the court fashions in poetry, the villancico and the rondeau, for unlike cl. Ar. music, and manners in accordance with those verse, the muwashshah. was sung, and Romance of Baghdad. By the time of the establishment musical patterns seem to have played at least of the Umayyad caliphate of Córdoba in ca. some part in shaping it. Another possible 930 ce, the strophic muwashshah. had emerged source is the stanzaic musammat. form, which as a distinctive local contribution to Ar. poetry, is first attested to in the poetry of Abū Nuwās the only strophic form ever to be cultivated to (d. 815 ce). any great extent by poets writing in cl. Ar. The Another class of poems thought to be derived originator of the genre is thought to be either from earlier Romance models has survived in Muh.ammad Mah. mud al-Qabrī (ca. 900 ce) or the urjūza poems on historical themes devel- Ibn Abd Rabbihi (ca. 860–940 ce). oped by Ibn Abd Rabbihi and others; these are The muwashshah. consists of five to seven long poems composed of rhyming distichs in a strophes, each in two parts (ghus.n [pl. aghs.ān] nonclassical quantitative meter known as rajaz. and simt. [pl. asmāt.]). The aghs.ān all have the Neither the form nor the theme was an Andalusi same metrical and rhyming patterns, but the invention, however; they were, instead, a direct rhyme sound changes from strophe to strophe; imitation of an Abbasid model, and these 9th- the asmāt. are uniform in meter and in rhyme and 10th-c. poems do not seem to have created sound throughout the poem. The poem tends a lasting genre. to begin with an opening simt.. The final simt., Though poetry is reported to have been an around which the whole poem was probably important feature of Andalusi culture, esp. in the composed, is the much-discussed kharja. The Cordoban court, as it was throughout the Ar.- kharja is written either in vernacular Ar., in speaking world, little has survived from the 8th Ibero-Romance, or in some combination of the and 9th cs., and what remains is conventional two; and it is generally believed to be a quota- in terms of theme, imagery, and verse patterns. tion from vernacular songs otherwise lost. Of Under the caliphate, however, Córdoba flour- great interest to Romance philologists as the ished as a literary center, and Andalusi poetry earliest attestations of lyric poetry in any Ibero- began to outshine even that of the East. The bulk Romance lang., the kharjas are thought by of the poetry was courtly panegyric and lampoon some to point to the existence of Iberian popu- in qas.īda form, but love poetry was extremely lar poetry predating the Muslim conquest (711 popular, as were descriptions of wine and wine ce), supporting the theory of a continuous Ibe- drinking, gardens, and ascetic verse. Great poets rian element in Andalusi poetry; but aside from include Ibn Hānī (ca. 937–73), Ibn Darrāj al- the kharjas themselves, no such poetry is extant. Qast.allī (fl. ca. 980), and al-Sharīf al-T.alīq (d. The metrics of the muwashshah. may also 1009). The latter two cultivated flower poetry, point to Romance origin. Though the poems which was to become a specialty of later Anda- can be scanned in conformity with the quan- lusi poets. They employ an increasingly ornate titative principles of Ar. poetry (arūd. ), the rhetorical style (badī) that originated in the East metrical patterns only rarely correspond to and is associated with the Abbasid master Abū the canonical ones, and the kharja often resists Tammām (788–845). quantitative analysis altogether. The metri- The decline of the Cordoban caliphate cal principle underlying the muwashshah. is (1009–31) and the period of the T. āifa king- believed by many to be syllabic (García Gómez doms (1031–91) saw the greatest achievements 1975, Monroe), though others maintain that it of Andalusi poetry. Ibn Shuhayd (fl. ca. 1035) is quantitative, having arisen through the evolu- composed a body of passionate and pessimis- tion of the qas.īda. Both Hartmann and Stern tic verse, as well as an unusual treatise on the pointed out that Eastern poets occasionally nature of poetry in which the narrator visits and varied the qas.īda’s monorhyme by subdivid- converses with the familiar spirits of dead poets. ing each of the two hemistichs with internal In contrast to the prevailing doctrine of poetry rhyme; the result was the pattern bbba, with as a learned craft of rhetorically ornamented a representing the constant rhyme. When a speech, he propounds an idea of individual whole poem has the bbba pattern, each line is a poetic inspiration. The theologian and legist miniature stanza. Thus, a subtype of the qas.īda Ibn H. azm (994–1064) wrote mostly short love may have developed into an entirely new verse verses, more conventional in style, but embody- type. This shift may have occurred under the ing a spiritual ideal of love closely resembling

For general queries, contact [email protected] © Copyright, Princeton University Press. No part of this book may be distributed, posted, or reproduced in any form by digital or mechanical means without prior written permission of the publisher. AL-ANDALUS, POETRY OF 11 that of the troubadours and worked out in Ibrahīm ibn Sahl of Seville (1212–52); H. āzim al- detail in his prose treatise. Their younger con- Qart.ājannī (1211–85), whose work on the the- temporary Ibn Zaydūn (1003–71) composed ory of poetry was also influential; and a famous a body of very individual poetry, esp. the odes woman poet, H. afsa bint al-H. ajj al-Rakuniyya arising out of his celebrated love affair with the (1135–91). The most original devel., however, princess Walāda bint al-Mustakfī (1001–80; also was the mystical poetry of Ibn Arabī (1165– an accomplished poet) that reflect the spiritual 1240), which derived its imagery from secular ideals of love developed by Ibn H. azm. It is from love poetry and its diction from the highly meta- this period, the late 11th c., that muwashshah. phorical style of the age. The final political phase texts are preserved. of Al-Andalus, the Kingdom of Granada (1248– Under the T. āifa kings, the city states of 1492), produced a few important poets, incl. Ibn Al-Andalus vied with each other for preemi- al-Khat.īb (1313–74) and Ibn Zamrak (1333–93), nence in the arts, esp. poetry. Seville became whose poems embellish the Alhambra. the city of poets par excellence, boasting The similarity of some of the strophic pat- the presence of the mature Ibn Zaydūn, Ibn terns of Arabo-Andalusi poetry and the notions Ammār (1031–86), Ibn al-Labbana (d. 1113), of love sung by Andalusi poets to those of the and Ibn Hamdīs (ca. 1056–1133); its last Arab troubadours has led some to see Ar. poetry as ruler, al-Mutamid Ibn Abbād (1040–95), the the inspiration of the troubadours (Nykl). The patron of all these, was himself a gifted poet. exact relationship of Andalusi poetry to the This efflorescence of poetry was partly made troubadour lyric continues to be the subject of possible by a policy of relative religious toler- intense scholarly debate (Boase, Menocal 1987), ance common at the T. āifa courts, but the as also is the problem of the zajal’s influence on Almoravids (1091–1145) introduced a funda- the Galician-Port. cantigas. mentalist regime that suppressed secular arts. See arabic poetry; portugal, poetry of; A few great poets, trained in the earlier period, spain, poetry of. flourished, such as the nostalgic nature poet JJ M. Hartmann, Das arabische Strophengedicht Ibn Khafāja (1058–1138), Ibn Abdūn (d. 1134) (1897); A. Cour, Un poète arabe d’Andalousie: of Évora, the muwashshah. poet Abū al-Abbas Ibn Zaídoûn (1920); R. Menéndez Pidal, “Poe- al-Amā al-Tutīlī (d. 1126), and the opaque Ibn sía árabe y poesía europea,” Bulletin hispanique al-Zaqqāq (1100–33); but it was also an age of 40 (1938); E. García Gómez, Un eclipse de la anthologists. Nevertheless, the period saw the poesía en Sevilla (1945) and Poemas arábigoanda- invention, probably by Ibn Bājja (early 12th c.), luces, 3d ed. (1946); A. R. Nykl, Hispano-Arabic of the zajal and its full flowering in the works Poetry and Its Relations with the Old Provençal of Ibn Quzmān (1078–1160). These are strophic Troubadours (1946); A. J. Arberry, Moorish Po- poems, similar to muwashshah. in that the stro- etry (1953); Ibn H. azm, The Ring of the Dove, phes have one element whose rhyme changes trans. A. J. Arberry (1953); H. Pérès, La poésie from strophe to strophe and another with con- andalouse en arabe classique au XIe siècle, 2d ed. stant rhyme, but the lang. is colloquial Anda- (1953); P. Le Gentil, Le Virelai et le villancico lusi Ar., the final simt. is not different from the (1954); S. Fiore, Über die Beziehungen zwischen rest of the poem, and there may be more than der arabischen und der fruhitalienischen Lyrik seven strophes; the asmāt. also have only half (1956); P. Le Gentil, “La Strophe zadjalesque, the number of lines in the opening simt.. The les khardjas et le problème des origines du ly- vulgar lang. of the zajal complements its theme, risme roman,” Romania 84 (1963)—judicious the bawdy, colorful life of taverns and streets, review of research to 1963; W. Heinrichs, Ara- observed and turned into lit. by sophisticated bische Dichtung und Griechische Poetik (1969); poets of aristocratic origin who mock the con- Ibn Shuhayd, Treatise of Familiar Spirits and ventions of courtly love and courtly poetry. The Demons, ed. and trans. J. T. Monroe (1971); form was probably adapted from vulgar poetry. E. García Gómez, Todo Ben Quzman (1972); Apparently as a secondary devel., a type of zajal J. M. Solà-Solé, Corpus de poesía mozárabe arose resembling the muwashshah. in everything (1973); J. T. Monroe, Hispano-Arabic Poetry but lang. Both types are already present in the (1974); S. M. Stern, Hispano-Arabic Strophic works of Ibn Quzmān. Poetry (1974); M. Frenk, La jarchas mozárabes Under the Almohads (1145–1223), there y los comienzos de la lírica románica (1975); was a revival of poetry: the great poets were al- E. García Gómez, Las jarchas de la serie árabe Rus.āfī (d. 1177); the converted Jew Abū Ishāq en su marco, 2d ed. (1975); R. Scheindlin, Form

For general queries, contact [email protected] © Copyright, Princeton University Press. No part of this book may be distributed, posted, or reproduced in any form by digital or mechanical means without prior written permission of the publisher. 12 ALBANIA, POETRY OF and Structure in the Poetry of al-Mutamid Ibn verse, incl. both trans. from Lat. and original Abbad (1975); L. F. Compton, Andalusian Lyri- Albanian poems in quatrain form, is octosyl- cal Poetry and Old Spanish Love Songs (1976); labic, which is the standard in Albanian folk R. Boase, The Origin and Meaning of Courtly verse. Budi prefers biblical themes, eulogies, Love (1977); R. Hitchcock, The Kharja: A Criti- and universal motifs such as the inevitability of cal Bibliography (1977); M. Frenk, Estudios sobre death. Though his rhymes are not always ele- lírica antigua (1978); E. García Gómez, El libro gant, his verse evinces an authenticity of feeling de las banderas de los campeones de Ibn Said al and genuine human concern for the sufferings Magribi, 2d ed. (1978); S. G. Armistead, “Some of a misguided world. Recent Developments in Kharja Scholarship,” The Ottoman invasion and occupation of La Corónica 8 (1980); GRLMA 2.1.46–73; Albania, starting in the late 14th c., brought M. R. Menocal, “The Etymology of Old Pro- about the gradual demise of this early Catho- vençal trobar, trobador,” RPh 36 (1982–83); lic poetry. It was replaced by aljamiado verse, Ibn Quzmān, El cancionero hispanoárabe, trans. written in Ar. script and strongly influenced by F. Corriente Córdoba (1984); M. R. Menocal, Islamic culture. Muslim poets wrote initially The Arabic Role in Medieval Literary History in Ottoman Turkish, but by the mid-18th c., (1987); D. C. Clarke, “The Prosody of the Har- they were experimenting in Albanian as well. gas,” La Corónica 16 (1987–88); M. J. Rubiera Among the leading literary figures of this period Mata, Poesía femenina hispanoárabe (1989); was Nezim Frakulla (ca. 1680–1760), from the C. Addas, “L’œuvre poétique d’Ibn Arabī et Fier region. Nezim writes proudly that he was sa réception,” Studia Islamica 91 (2000); A. P. the first person to compose a divan in Albanian: Espósito, “The Monkey in the Jarcha: Tradi- “Who bade the divan speak Albanian? / Nezim tion and Canonicity in the Early Iberian Lyric,” has made it known, / Who bade clarity speak in Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies Albanian? / Nezim has made it human.” About 30 (2000); T. Rosen, “The Muwashshah,” The 110 of his poems are preserved, all replete with Literature of Al-Andalus, ed. M. R. Menocal, vocabulary of Turkish and Persian origin. R. Scheindlin, and M. Sells (2000); S. G. Ar- Leaving aside the Italo-Albanian poets of mistead, “Kharjas and Villancicos,” and R. K. southern Italy, such as Giulio Variboba (1724– Farrin, “The ‘Nūniyya’ of Ibn Zaydūn: A Struc- 88), Nicola Chetta (ca. 1740–1803), Girolamo tural and Thematic Analysis,” Journal of Arabic De Rada (1814–1903), and Giuseppe Serembe Literature 34 (2003); F. Corriente, “Again on (1844–1901), who all made substantial contri- (Partially) Romance Andalusi Kharajāt,” Jour- butions to the evolution of Albanian verse, we nal of Arabic Literature 35 (2004); H. L. Heij first note a revival of verse in Albania itself in koop and Otto Zwartjes, Muwaššah. , Zajal, the late 19th c., during the Rilindja period of Kharja: Bibliography of Strophic Poetry and national renaissance. Among the leading fig- Music from Al-Andalus and Their Influence in ures of this movement for national identity and East and West (2004). political autonomy were Pashko Vasa (1825– R. P. Scheindlin; V. Barletta 92) of Shkodra, whose poem O moj Shqypni, e mjera Shqypni (O Albania, Poor Albania), a stir- ALBANIA, POETRY OF. Albanian is an IE ring appeal for national awakening, was written lang. spoken in Albania, Kosovo, and sur- in the dramatic years of the League of Prizren, rounding areas in the southwestern part of the 1878–80; and Naim Frashëri (1846–1900), now Balkan Peninsula. Albania attained its inde- widely regarded as Albania’s national poet. Fra- pendence in 1912 after five centuries as part of shëri’s verse, published for the most part while the Ottoman Empire. he was living in Constantinople and very popu- The beginnings of written verse in Albania lar among Albanians at the time, included pas- are strongly linked to the Catholic Church. toral lyrics in the trad. of Virgil, heavily laden Pjetër Budi (1566–1622), from the Mati area, with the imagery of his mountain homeland; trained for the priesthood at the Illyrian College historical epics; and Bektashi religious verse. of Loretto, south of Ancona in Italy, and was A qualitative step forward occurred in the later bishop of Sapa and Sarda in the Zadrima early decades of the 20th c., when the Alba- region. His major publication, a catechism nian lang. first became widespread in education titled Dottrina Christiana (Christian Doctrine, and publishing. Though the romantic nation- 1618), has an appendix of 53 pages of religious alism of the Rilindja period was still popu- poetry in Albanian, some 3,000 lines. This lar, other themes were introduced, incl. love

For general queries, contact [email protected] © Copyright, Princeton University Press. No part of this book may be distributed, posted, or reproduced in any form by digital or mechanical means without prior written permission of the publisher. ARABIC POETICS 13 poetry, which initially caused quite a scandal. published, and it immediately caught the imag- Among the leading poets of the early decades ination of the beleaguered public. were Anton Zako Çajupi (1866–1930), who Ideological restrictions vanished when the was active in Egypt; Ndre Mjeda (1866–1937) Stalinist regime imploded in 1989–90, and of Shkodra, whose collection Juvenilia (1917), chaos reigned in the little Balkan country for influenced by the 19th-c. It. classics, included a decade. Yet, despite the harsh conditions of sonnets and other verse in refined meters; and a free-market economy, contemp. poetry lost Asdreni (1872–1947), from the southeastern none of its fundamental importance in Alba- Korça region, whose first three verse collections nian national culture. Well into the 21st c., were well received. verse collections still account for more than The greatest figure of Albanian verse before 50% of literary output. Albania is and remains World War II was Gjergj Fishta (1871–1940), a land of poets. whose 15,000-line verse epic of Albanian his- JJ G. Schirò, Storia della letteratura albanese tory, Lahuta e Malcís (The Highland Lute, 1937), (1959); A. Pipa, Albanian Literature: Social Per- caused him to be revered as the Albanian Homer. spectives (1978) and Contemporary Albanian Lit- When the Communists took power in 1944, his erature (1991); An Elusive Eagle Soars: Anthology work was swiftly repressed, and the very men- of Modern Albanian Poetry, ed. R. Elsie (1993); tion of his name was taboo for 46 years. R. Elsie, History of Albanian Literature (1995) Two poets, entirely different from one another, and Studies in Modern Albanian Literature and may be regarded as the vanguards of modernity Culture (1996); A. Zotos, Anthologie de la poésie in Albanian lit. The messianic Migjeni (1911–38) albanaise (1998); R. Elsie, Albanian Literature: of Shkodra turned away from the beauty of the A Short History (2005); Songs of the Frontier Albanian mountains and the sacred trads. of Warriors, Këngë Kreshnikësh: Albanian Epic Verse the nation to devote his verse to the social reali- (2004) and Lightning from the Depths: An An- ties of despair and ubiquitous squalor, against thology of Albanian Poetry (2008) ed. and trans. which he rose in defiance. His slender collec- R. Elsie and J. Mathie-Heck. tion Vargjet e Lira (Free Verse, 1944), published R. Elsie posthumously, represented a literary revolution and a breath of fresh air that did away with the AMERICAN INDIAN POETRY. See indig- trads. of romantic nationalism for good. Las- enous americas, poetry of the; inuit gush Poradeci (1899–1987), a pantheistic poet poetry; navajo poetry from Pogradec on Lake Ohrid, studied the ever- changing moods of the lake to offer crystalline AMERICAN POETRY. See united states, verse in southern Albanian folk style. poetry of the Albanian written culture and verse reached a zenith in the 1930s and early 1940s. A mod. AMERIND POETRY. See indigenous ameri- lit. had been created, and the nation had come cas, poetry of the of age. However, it was a brief blossoming in the shadow of an apocalypse. The Stalin- AMHARIC POETRY. See ethiopia, poetry of ist takeover and purges under dictator Enver Hoxha (1908–85) caused terror in intellectual ARABIC POETICS circles and snuffed out imaginative writing in the country for almost 20 years. Only Martin I. Classical Camaj (1925–92), in Bavarian exile, and the II. Modern unfettered poets of Kosovo were left to build on established trads. I. Classical. The first .Ar works on poetics were By the early 1960s, a new generation of composed at the end of the 9th and beginning poets in Albania, led by Fatos Arapi (b. 1930), of the 10th c. Four groups of scholars were in Dritëro Agolli (b. 1931), and Ismail Kadare (b. varying degrees instrumental in shaping this 1936), managed to slip elements of aesthetic new literary genre: the experts on ancient po- finesse into their volumes of obligatory and etry, the poets and critics of mod. poetry (for otherwise stale partisan poetry. There was no ancient versus mod., see below), the Quranic thaw in Albanian verse during the Communist scholars, and the (Aristotelian) logicians. Ear- period (1944–89); but cautious openings, ever lier, the pre-Islamic poets very likely had had a so slight, enabled some verse of quality to be professional lang. for technical features of their

For general queries, contact [email protected] © Copyright, Princeton University Press. No part of this book may be distributed, posted, or reproduced in any form by digital or mechanical means without prior written permission of the publisher. 14 ARABIC POETICS poetry, and there are reports about comparative outrageous—and severely criticized—speci- evaluation of poets, but none of this amounts to mens (e.g., “the eyes of religion were cooled,” an explicit ars poetica. meaning that the Islamic armies were victori- In the field of poetry, two devels. are note- ous). However, the term soon spread to other worthy. First, ancient, (i.e., pre- and early figures of speech. The poet Ibn al-Mutazz (d. Islamic) poetry became canonized as a corpus 296/908), who devoted the first monograph of cl. texts. This meant that ancient poetry was to this topic, Kitāb al-Badī (The Book of the considered a repository of correct and authori- Novel [Style]), proposed five figures to be cov- tative speech. As such, it became the domain of ered by the term—metaphors of the kind just the philologists, who, around the middle of the mentioned, paronomasia, antithesis, epana- 8th c., began to collect the extant poetry into lepsis (or epanadiplosis), and playful dialectics dīwāns and anthols.; to these they later added imitating theological jargon. The main goal of interlinear glosses on lexical and grammatical his book is to demonstrate that the badī phe- matters. Once the task of editing and writing nomena are not new but can be found already commentaries had been mostly achieved, we do in ancient poetry as well as in the Quran and in find one book that may be called a grammar- wisdom aphorisms; it is only their exaggerated ian’s poetics: the Qawāidal-shir (Foundations use that is truly new. of Poetry) ascribed to the Kufan grammarian Coming from one of the foremost poets of Thalab (d. 291/904—dates refer to the Mus- his time, this line of argument obviously served lim and the Common eras, respectively). This to legitimize the use of badī. Ibn al-Mutazz’s is a logically arranged collection of techni- book became influential in several ways: (1) the cal terms often provided with definitions and discipline dealing with rhetorical figures was always exemplified with a number of shawāhid named “the science of badī” after the title of his (evidentiary verses). Significantly, it starts with book; (2) the discovery of legitimizing precedent an enumeration of four basic types of sentences in ancient texts, esp. the Quran, became com- (command, prohibition, report, question) that monplace, and as a result, the system of the rhe- are introduced as the “foundations of poetry,” torical figures came to be considered an integral and it ends with a verse typology based on the and static part of the lang.: their proliferation syntactic independence or interdependence in later rhetorical works was thus thought to be of the two hemistichs of the line in which due to closer analysis rather than new invention; the highest aesthetic value is accorded those (3) the emphasis on figures of speech as the cen- lines that have two independently meaning- tral concern of literary theory originated here; ful hemistichs. This atomistic approach to the and (4) the difference between poetry and prose study and evaluation of poetry prevails in most in most respects, save the purely formal one, was of the theoretical lit. considered unimportant. The second notable event that had a decisive The result of factor (4) in particular meant (indeed, greater) effect on the devel. of poet- that, although works on literary theory— ics and literary theory was the rise, around the mostly rhetorical in outlook—continued to middle of the 8th c., of a new school of poetry: be produced, works on poetics proper tended the muh.dathūn (moderns). By contrasting them to become the exception. Two of them were with their forebears, the qudamā (ancients), composed by younger contemporaries of Ibn critics and theorists became aware of some al-Mutazz, one by the poet Ibn T.abāt.abā (d. of the basic dichotomies in poetry. It should 322/934), titled Iyār al-shir (The Standard of be noted, however, that the model of ancient Poetry), the other by the state scribe and logi- poetry was never seriously challenged, which cian Qudāma ibn Jafar (d. after 320/932). meant that the innovations of the moderns Although Ibn T.abāt.abā did not use the word leaned toward mannerism and relied heavily on badī  in its technical sense, he is well aware of earlier poetry. Critical discussions focused on a the predicament of the moderns, who can no phenomenon called badī—literally, “new, orig- longer simply utter truths, as did the ancients, inal, newly invented.” The earliest attestations but have to display their wits in a subtle treat- of the word suggest that it was originally used ment of well-known motifs. He is also remark- to refer to a special type of metaphor (imagi- able for giving a step-by-step description of the nary ascriptions such as “the claws of death”) production of a poem; this is quite rare because that played an important role in the poetic works on poetics usually offer theories of poetic technique of the moderns, who created some crit. rather than artes poeticae in the strict sense.

This characterization is esp. true of of the critics. Such figures became so predomi- Qudāma’s poetics, which the author describes nant in later Abbasid poetry, however, that as the first book on the “science of the good and some theorists (Ibn Fāris, Ibn H. azm) posited the bad in poetry” and aptly titles Naqd al-shir falsehood as one of the constituent elements (The Assaying of Poetry). His work is at the of poetry. (4) Regarding the question of sariqa same time the first representative of the third (plagiarism), although this word means “theft” approach to literary theory (besides the gram- and originally denoted flagrant literary larceny, matical and the poetic already mentioned), with the increasing tendency toward manner- namely, that of the logician in the Aristotelian ism in mod. poetry, sariqa became a way of trad. This characterization refers, however, less life, and the disreputable connotation of the to the content than to the structure and presen- term gave way to the more neutral one of “tak- tation of his work: he starts with a definition ing over” (an earlier motif); critics even began (“Poetry is metrical, rhymed utterance pointing to talk of “good sariqas.” Taking over an ear- to a meaning”) that yields the four constitutive lier poet’s motif and improving on it, mostly by elements: meter, rhyme, wording, and mean- the application of badī, constituted an istih.qāq ing. He then discusses first the good qualities (better claim [to that motif]), for which the of these elements and their combinations, fol- poet earned high praise. lowed by the bad. Although Qudāma was much Ar. poetics, fostered by the rise of mod. quoted by later authors, his “foreign” method poetry, soon experienced something like did not find followers. arrested growth. The work of the Quranic The controversies about the mod. poets’ use scholar and grammarian al-Rummānī (d. 384/ of badī , though reflected in theory, can more 994), al-Nukat fī ijāz al-Qurān (Thoughtful accurately be gauged from works of applied crit. Remarks on the Inimitability of the Quran), in such as the books devoted to the controversial which he undertook to prove this dogma on “rhetorical” poets Abū Tammām (d. 231/845) the basis of the Quran’s balāgha (eloquence), and al-Mutanabbī (d. 354/965). The major soon began to influence works on poetics and topics that emerge are the following: (1) The rhetorical figures. The first major compilation relationship between t.ab (natural talent) and that resulted, the Kitāb al-s.inā atayn (Book of s.ana (artful or artificial crafting). The latter the Two Crafts [i.e., poetry and prose]) by Abū term came to mean the application of badī Hilāl al-Askarī (d. 395/1004), expressly men- to the motif at hand. According to taste and tions proving the inimitability of the Quran predilection, some considered this takalluf as its main goal and makes extensive use of (constraint, artificiality), while others pointed al-Rummānī’s work. The confluence of the two to the element of tajīb (causing amazement) different technical terminologies, Quranic and that it imparted to well-known motifs. Given poetic, at first created a notable confusion that the general drift toward mannerism, this was was only gradually eliminated, esp. by the great- a much sought-after effect. (2) The role oflafz . est of all Ar. literary theorists, Abd al-Qāhir (wording) versus manā (meaning) in poetry. al-Jurjānī (d. 471/1078). In his Asrār al-balāgha Already at the end of the 8th c., a consensus (The Mysteries of Eloquence), he tried to estab- had been reached that poetry was to be judged lish a clear and unambiguous taxonomy for the by its wording, since the meaning was nothing theory of imagery (simile, analogy, metaphor but the material to be shaped. Some authori- based on simile, metaphor based on analogy); ties are said to have given precedence to the and for the first time, he finds, designates, and meaning, but on closer inspection, it appears describes the phenomenon of takhyīl (fantas- that they intended the manā al-s.ana (the spe- tic interpretation, i.e., inventing imaginary cial meaning created by the application of a causes, effects, and proofs, often on the basis figure of speech; this comes close to the con- of metaphors taken literally)—which is so char- ceit in Western mannerist poetry and thus did acteristic of later Abbasid poetry. Although not not undermine the priority of the wording. a comprehensive work on poetics, the “Mys- (3) The relationship between poetry and real- teries” certainly is the most sustained effort to ity, whether s.idq (truth) or kadhib (falsehood). reach to the core of Ar. poetry. In general, poetry is presumed to depict reality mimetically. Obvious “falsehoods” such as (CONTINUED...) imaginary metaphors and hyperboles, therefore, tended to provoke objections on the part

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