Friday, January 15, 2010

Arabic Poetry

Extension to Classical Arabic Poetry

Arabic has 8 feet (called جزء pl. أجزاء). Below is a table that explains them all.

The first column shows how the syllables in each foot come together. These feet have English names, but they are too complex and irrelevant to mention here.

The second column gives the actual foot. In this column, the thing we want to watch for is the pattern of vowelled and non-vowelled letters. Whether there is a long vowel, which letters we use, or which vowel we use are of no significance.

For this reason, the third column summarizes the feet by giving them a code. The “0” in the code means the consonant is not vowelled (ساكنة) and a “1” means it is (متحركة). And this is what we’re interested in. Remember, the long vowels الف, واو, and ياء are considered non-vowelled (ساكنة).

Name

Foot

Code
Read the code from right to left

short-long-short

فَعُولُنْ

01011

long-short-short

فَاعِلُنْ

01101

short-short-short-short

مُسْتَفْعِلُنْ

0110101

short-long-long-short

مَفاعِيلُنْ

0101011

short-long-long-short

مَفْعُولاَتُ

0110111

long-short-long-short

فَاعِلاَتُنْ

0101101

short-long-short-short-short

مُفَاعَلَتُنْ

0111011

short-short-long-short-short

مُتَفَاعِلُنْ

0110111

Exercise: write the code of the following lines of poetry below them and see if you can identify the feet above. (this example is from the معلقة of امر القيس)

بِسِقْـطِ اللِّـوى بَيْـنَ الدَّخـولِ فَحَـوْمَـلِ

قِـفا نَـبْكِ مِنْ ذِكْرى حَـبيبٍ وَمَـنْـزِلِ

لِـما نَسَـجَتْـها مِـنْ جَنـوبٍ وَشَـمْـأَلِ

فَتـوضِحَ فَالْـمِقْـراةِ لَمْ يَعْـفُ رَسْـمُها


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