Arabian Satire (el. knyga) (skaityta knyga) | Al-Shw& | knygos.lt

Aprašymas

This lively volume collects key poems by the 18th-century poet, Hmedan al-Shwe'ir, who lived in the Najd region of the Arabian Peninsula shortly before the hegemony of the Wahhabi movement. A master of satire known for his ribald humor, self-deprecation, and invective verse (hija), Hmedan was acerbic in his criticisms of society and its morals, which he voiced in a poetic idiom widely referred to as "Nabati," here a mix of Najdi vernacular and vocabulary and images dating back to the origins of Arabic poetry. In his poetry Hmedan is mostly concerned with worldly matters, and addresses these in different guises: as the patriarch at the helm of the family boat and its unruly crew; as a picaresque anti-hero who revels in taking pot shots at the established order, its hypocrisy, and its moral failings; as a peasant who labors over his palm trees, often to no avail and with no guarantee of success; and as a poet recording in verse how he thinks things ought to be. The poems in Arabian Satire reveal a plucky, headstrong, yet intensely socially committed figure--representative of the traditional Najdi ethos--who infuses his verse with proverbs, maxims, and words of wisdom expressed plainly and conversationally. Although frequently quoted by Najdi historians and in anthologies of popular sayings, this is the first full translation of ?medan's collected poetry (diwan).