Bedouin Poetry from Sinai and the Negev: Mirror of a Culture

by Clinton Bailey, Wilfred Thesiger

Overview

Like other nonliterate peoples, the Bedouin have a strong oral tradition and use poetry for all forms of communication and entertainment. Based on twenty years of studying the poetry of the Bedouin of Sinai and the Negev, this book presents 115 poems recorded between 1967 and 1985. Bailey arranges the poems according to their content, providing for each an introduction, a version of the poem in Arabic script and transliteration, and notes on the poem's cultural, linguistic, and historical background.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780198265474
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	04/11/1991
Pages:	496
Product dimensions:	6.38(w) x 9.50(h) x 1.50(d)

Table of Contents

	Note on Plates	xvii
	List of Maps	xvii
	Notes on the Arabic Text	xviii
	Introduction	1
1.	Poems of Expression	18
2.	Poems of Communication	72
3.	Poems of Instruction	120
4.	Poems to Entertain	164
5.	Episodes in Poetry I: Poems from the War of Zari' al-Huzayyil (1875-1887)	253
6.	Episodes in Poetry II: Poems Sent from and to the Sinai Smuggler-Poet 'Anez abu Salim during a Prison Term (1962-1970)	288
7.	Poems on the Margin of Historic Events (1882-1982)	341
8.	Composing Bedouin Poetry: Art and Technique	381
9.	Perspective on Bedouin Poetry: A Cultural Document for the Ages	406
	Glossary of Bedouin Words and Usages	430
	Bibliography	458
	Index of Subjects	463
	Index of Arabic Names and Tribal Groups	470