New words to old tunes genres and metrics of Lebanese Zajal poetry
(eBook)

English

Additional resources and audio recordings available from publisher's website.

At foot of cover: University of Cambridge, Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies.

At head of front cover: Cambridge Semitic languages and cultures.

Audio and video recordings available within the text.

Available through Open Book Publishers.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 197-200) and index.

Open access resource providing free access.

"New Words to Old Tunes: Genres and Metrics of Lebanese Zajal Poetry introduces the rich tradition of Lebanese oral poetry, offering an in-depth study and analysis of its metrics and genres. It presents a novel framework for the proper scansion of meters and emphasises the previously overlooked roles of musical and poetic stress. It details nearly twenty zajal genres, including popular songs that use zajal metrics, and integrates musical notations and web-streamed audio links to enrich the reader's experience. By presenting both theoretical analysis and practical applications, the book not only contributes to the academic study of Lebanese and Arab oral traditions but also supports broader efforts to preserve and disseminate this cultural heritage through digital humanities. While previous works have been largely descriptive or focused on specific poets, this book provides a detailed analytical approach to zajal metrics and their musical dimensions. This rigorous and comprehensive study will be of interest to scholars working on oral traditions, folklore studies, ethnomusicology, cultural studies, oral-formulaic poetry traditions, throughout the Middle East and beyond."--Publisher's website.

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

This work is licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) license. For more detailed information consult the publisher's website.

English and Arabic.