The Mute Immortals Speak: Pre-Islamic Poetry and the Poetics of Ritual

by Suzanne Pinckney Stetkevych

Book Overview

A body of Bedouin oral poetry which was collected in the second or third Islamic century, the pre-Islamic qasidah, or ode, stands with the Qur'an as a twin foundation of Arabo-Islamic literary culture. Throughout the rich fifteen-hundred-year history of classical Arabic literature, the qasidah served as profane anti-text to the sacred text of the Qur'an. While recognizing the esteem in which Arabs have traditionally held this poetry of the pagan...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0801480469
• ISBN13: 9780801480461
• Release Date: September 2010
• Publisher: Cornell University Press
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.9" x 8.9"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher