The Princeton Handbook of World Poetries - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0691170517 ISBN 13: 9780691170510

Verlag: Princeton University Press, 2016

Inhaltsangabe

The Princeton Handbook of World Poetries--drawn from the latest edition of the acclaimed Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics--provides a comprehensive and authoritative survey of the history and practice of poetry in more than 100 major regional, national, and diasporic literatures and language traditions around the globe. With more than 165 entries, the book combines broad overviews and focused accounts to give extensive coverage of poetic traditions throughout the world. For students, teachers, researchers, poets, and other readers, it supplies a one-of-a-kind resource, offering in-depth treatment of Indo-European poetries (all the major Celtic, Slavic, Germanic, and Romance languages, and others); ancient Middle Eastern poetries (Hebrew, Persian, Sumerian, and Assyro-Babylonian); subcontinental Indian poetries (Bengali, Hindi, Marathi, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Tamil, Urdu, and more); Asian and Pacific poetries (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Mongolian, Nepalese, Thai, and Tibetan); Spanish American poetries (those of Mexico, Peru, Argentina, Chile, and many other Latin American countries); indigenous American poetries (Guarani, Inuit, and Navajo); and African poetries (those of Ethiopia, Somalia, South Africa, and other countries, and including African languages, English, French, and Portuguese). Complete with an introduction by the editors, this is an essential volume for anyone interested in understanding poetry in an international context. * Drawn from the latest edition of the acclaimed Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics* Provides more than 165 authoritative entries on poetry in more than 100 regional, national, and diasporic literatures and language traditions throughout the world* Features extensive coverage of non-Western poetic traditions* Includes an introduction, bibliographies, cross-references, and a general index

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Roland Greene is the Mark Pigott KBE Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences at Stanford University and the founder and director of Arcade, a digital salon for literary studies and the humanities. He is the editor in chief of The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics. Stephen Cushman is the Robert C. Taylor Professor of English at the University of Virginia and the general editor of The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

The Princeton Handbook of World Poetries

By Roland Greene, Stephen Cushman

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

Copyright © 2017 Princeton University Press
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-691-17051-0

Contents

Preface, vii, 
Acknowledgments, ix, 
Alphabetical List of Entries, xi, 
Bibliographical Abbreviations, xiii, 
General Abbreviations, xvii, 
Contributors, xix, 
Entries A to Z, 1, 
Index, 613, 

CHAPTER 1

A

AFRICA, POETRY OF

I. English

II. French

III. Portuguese

IV. Indigenous.See EGYPT, POETRY OF; ETHIOPIA, POETRY OF; HAUSA POETRY; SOMALI POETRY; SWAHILI POETRY; XHOSA POETRY; ZULU POETRY.

I. English. With the end of the colonial period and the advance of literacy and higher education in Africa came a rapid efflorescence of Af. poetry written in Eng. This poetry displays the variety to be expected in so diverse a continent. Like other examples of postcolonial poetics, Af. poetry in Eng. develops out of the fusion of indigenous trads. with the literary inheritances transmitted through the colonial lang. It is responsive to local idioms, values, and hist. and at the same time remakes for Af. experience the forms and styles imported through Eng. from the Brit. Isles, America, and elsewhere. The adoption of the Eng. lang. for Af. purposes, while advantageous to writers who wish to be heard by an international audience, is fraught with political significance. Some Af. critics contend that poetry written in a historically imperialist lang. cannot be fully disassociated from colonialism's oppressive legacy.

Af. poetry written in Eng. is often seen as divided between poetry that is locally rooted and influenced by Af. oral trads. and cosmopolitan poetry, which is indebted primarily to Western literary trads. The work of Af. poets, however, complicates this distinction, since even the most cosmopolitan poets, such as the Nigerian poet Wole Soyinka, also draw on local oral trads., and even the most local, such as the Ugandan poet Okot p'Bitek (1931–82), also make use of Western literary models. In the wake of colonialism and under the influence of globalization, Af. poetry in Eng. is inextricable from Brit., Ir., Am., and other influences, even when in revolt against the West's values and cultural forms. Conversely, in the West, the descendants of enslaved Africans and economic migrants have fundamentally shaped poetry.

The first poem in the sequence "Heavensgate" (1962, rev. 1964) by Nigerian poet Christopher Okigbo (1932–67) serves as an example of the enmeshment of Af. and Western poetics in sub-Saharan Africa. The poet invokes the Igbo river goddess, near the village where he grew up: "Before you, mother Idoto / naked I stand." Reaffirming his affinity with native culture, Okigbo grounds his poem in local religion and flora (naked, he leans on the oilbean tree, sacred to Idoto, a totem for her worship). At the same time, his diction (referring to himself as "a prodigal" further in the poem) and rhet. ("Before you, mother Idoto") also recall the Christianity that missionaries imported into Igboland. The lyric is shaped by the Roman Catholicism in which Okigbo was brought up, incl. prayers to the Virgin Mary and the story of the prodigal son. The poem's final lines, which cry out to a native divinity, paradoxically echo Psalm 130 ("Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord") and Psalm 5 ("Give ear to my words, O Lord. ... Hearken unto the voice of my cry").

Although Af. poets are indebted to religious, lyric, and other cultural forms from the West, they seldom lose their awareness of Africa's rich oral trads. A poem such as Okot p'Bitek's Lawino (1966) relies on Acholi songs, proverbs, repetitions, idioms, and oral address, even as it also draws on the model of the Western long poem (Okot has cited H. W. Longfellow's "Hiawatha" as a key influence). An aggrieved village woman inveighs against her husband for forsaking his local culture and being too enamored of Western ways: "Listen, Ocol, you are the son of a Chief, / Leave foolish behavior to little children." In her book-length complaint, Lawino repeatedly brandishes an Acholi proverb that warns against uprooting the pumpkin; in so doing, she emphasizes the importance of preserving the household, as well as the oral trads. that sustain it.

Between the poles marked out by Okigbo's highly literary, allusive, syntactically complex early poetry and Okot's orally based poetics of song, praise, and invective, Af. poetry has discovered a multitude of ways to mediate the oral and scribal, the local and global, the socially urgent protest and the private meditation. Indeed, as an Oxford-trained anthropologist influenced by Longfellow and the Bible, Okot cannot be reduced to simple nativism. And as a poet who absorbs drum rhythms and praise song into his later work, Okigbo — who died fighting for an independent Biafra — should not be seen as a Westernized sellout. Under the influence of intensified global communication, trade, education, and travel, younger poets work in ever-more deeply hybrid and transnational forms. The South Af. Lesego Rampolokeng (b. 1965), e.g., draws on a global array of influences, incl. rap musicians, the Af. Am. Last Poets, Jamaican dub poet Mutabaruka, and Jamaicanborn Brit. reggae poet Linton Kwesi Johnson, to mount a vehement social critique of his country both before and after apartheid.

From the period of Af. decolonization, first formally achieved in anglophone Africa with Ghana's independence in 1957, to today's struggle against both external economic imperialism and the internalized colonialism of dictators and tyrants, oral and other traditional poetry has strongly influenced Af. Eng. poems. The imprint of Af. oral culture is visible in such fundamental elements as the poet's stance as defender of communal values; allusions to the hist., customs, and artifacts of the culture; and the architectonic features adapted from praise song, proverbial tale, epic, invective, and indigenous prayer. Experiments in the transmutation of traditional Af. poetic forms into Eng. vary with the culture represented.

Arising in the aftermath of modernism, much Af. Eng. poetry eschews meter and rhyme in favor of free verse, often ornamented by alliteration and assonance, although rap's influence has spawned intensely rhymed and rhythmic verse. Poems that are meant to speak to, or for, Af. communities avoid extended conceits unless they are buttressed by hard or sardonic reason or concrete imagery.

A. West Africa. West Africa, particularly Nigeria and Ghana, has the oldest and most influential trad. of sophisticated poetry in Eng. This lyric poetry combines audacious leaps of thought and individualized expression with social responsibility; it privileges the metaphysical, religious, and social concepts of its own society, although it also draws on concepts indigenous to Eur. cultural hist. When social protest is overt, it is usually presented with intellectual and artistic complexity rather than simplistic fervor. Exemplary Nigerian poets and their principal works include the country's oldest active poet Gabriel Okara (b. 1921; The Fisherman's Invocation [1978], written against the background of civil war); Christopher Okigbo (Labyrinths [1971], incl. the prophetic sequence "Path of Thunder"); J. P. Clark (b. 1935; Reed in the Tide [1965], incl. autobiographical poems; Casualties [1970], concerning the war between Nigeria and Biafra; A Decade of Tongues [1981]; State of the Union [1981], about Nigeria's socioeconomic and political problems in an international context); the philosopher and polemicist Chinweizu (b. ca. 1935; Invocations and Admonitions [1986]); the Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka (b. 1934; Idanre [1967], based on Yoruba mythology; Shuttle in the Crypt [1971]; Mandela's Earth and Other Poems [1988]; and a number of plays that contain poetry); Odia Ofeimun (b. 1947; The Poet Lied [1989], Dreams at Work [2000]); Niyi Osundare (b. 1947; Village Voices [1984], The Eye of the Earth [1986], Waiting Laughters [1990], The Word Is an Egg [2004]); and Tanure Ojaide (b. 1948; Labyrinths of the Delta [1986], The Endless Song [1988], In the House of Words [2006]).

Among Ghanaians, experiments in the trans. and adaptation of indigenous poetic forms have been common, as in the works of Kofi Awoonor (1935–2013; Rediscovery [1964], in which Ewe funeral dirges are brought into Eng.; Night of My Blood [1971], both autobiographical and political; Ride Me, Memory [1973], in which a Ghanaian abroad reflects on his country; The House by the Sea [1978]; Guardians of the Sacred Word [1978], a collection of Ewe poetry); Kofi Anyidoho (b. 1947; Elegy for the Revolution [1978], A Harvest of Our Dreams [1985], Ancestral Logic and Caribbean Blues [1992]); and Atukwei (John) Okai (b. 1941; The Oath of the Fontomfrom [1971], whose title poem refers to a royal drum that beats out the hist. of a society; Lorgorligi Logarithms [1974]; Freedom Symphony [2008], love poems). Closer to Western trads. of sensibility and structure are others such as Kwesi Brew (1924–2007; The Shadows of Laughter [1968], African Panorama [1981], Return of No Return [1995], The Clan of the Leopard [1996]), A. W. Kayper-Mensah (1923–80; The Dark Wanderer [1970]; The Drummer in Our Time [1975], concerning Africa's view of Europe; Sankofa: Adinkra Poems [1976]; Proverb Poems [1976]), and Frank Kobina Parkes (1932–2004; Songs from the Wilderness [1965]).

A notable poet of Gambia was Lenrie Peters (1932–2009; Satellites [1967], poems about human rights in the broadest sense; Katchikali [1971], which takes its name from a sacred place in Bakau, where the coast of Gambia juts into the North Atlantic; Selected Poetry [1981]).

Prominent poets of Sierra Leone include Syl Cheney-Coker (b. 1945; Concerto for an Exile [1973]; The Graveyard Also Has Teeth [1980]; The Blood in the Desert's Eyes [1990]) and Lemuel Johnson (1940–2002; Highlife for Caliban [1973]; Hand on the Navel [1978]).

B. East Africa. East Af. poetry is dominated by two styles. One originated in Okot p'Bitek's trans. and adaptation of his own Acholi poetry. Okot (Song of Lawino, the lament of a rural wife over encroaching Westernization; Song of Ocol [1970], her husband's reply; "Song of Prisoner" [1971], a commentary on Kenyan politics; "Song of Malaya" [1971], a critique of sexual morality) was probably the most widely read poet of Africa in the later 20th c. Through long rhetorical monologues usually narrated by a victim of modernization, these poems express social commentary with lucid, graphic imagery, humorous irony, and paradoxical common sense. Another Ugandan poet who makes extensive use of Af. proverbs and folk culture is Okello Oculi (b. 1942; Orphan [1968], an allegorical account of Af. culture's removal from traditional values;Malak [1976], a narrative poem about the dictator Idi Amin's Uganda; Kookolem [1978], about the intersection of social and domestic oppression; Song for the Sun in Us [2000]).

An alternative style, more obviously indebted to West Af. poetry, uses asyndeton, subtle imagery, and erudite allusions to convey a mordant and individualized vision of mod. life. It includes a wider range of subjects, tones, and frames of reference. Preeminent poets include the Kenyan Jared Angira (b. 1947; Juices [1970]; Silent Voices [1972]; Soft Corals [1973]; Cascades [1979]; The Years Go By [1980]), the Ugandan Richard Ntiru (b. 1946; Tensions [1971]), and the South Sudanese Taban lo Liyong (b. 1939; Meditations in Limbo [1970]; Frantz Fanon's Uneven Ribs [1971]; Another Nigger Dead [1972]; Ballads of Underdevelopment [1976]; Another Last Word [1990]).

C. Southern Africa . Before the abolition of apartheid, Eng.-lang. South Af. poetry was most concerned with subjugation, courage, poverty, prisons, revolt, and the private griefs of public injustice. South Af. poets writing in Eng. before the 1970s were often exiles, whose works, therefore, also reflected Brit. or Am. experience — e.g., Arthur Nortje (1942–70; Dead Roots [1973]), Cosmo Pieterse (b. 1930; Echo and Choruses: "Ballad of the Cells" [1974]), and esp. Dennis Brutus (1924–2009; Sirens, Knuckles and Boots [1963]; Letters to Martha and Other Poems from a South African Prison [1968]; Poems from Algiers [1970]; A Simple Lust [1973], the collection that marked Brutus's turn from artifice toward a plain style; China Poems [1975]; Stubborn Hope [1978]; Salutes and Censures [1982]; Leafdrift [2005]). In Brutus's poetry, the speaker is often an observer combining passionate concern with reflective distance, and the imagery portrays monstrous abuse in natural and social settings of oblivious serenity. Even after the ending of apartheid, Brutus continued to write poetry that championed a more just social order than South Africa achieved as a new democracy.

The experimental adaptation of regional Af. forms to original poetry in the Eng. lang. is well represented by the work of Mazisi Kunene (1930–2006; Zulu Poems [1970]; Emperor Shaka the Great: A Zulu Epic [1979], an adaptation of a traditional epic; Anthem of the Decades [1981]; and The Ancestors and the Sacred Mountain [1982]).

Keroapetse Kgositsile (b. 1938; Spirits Unchained [1969]; For Melba [1970]; My Name Is Afrika [1971]; The Present Is a Dangerous Place to Live [1975]; To the Bitter End [1995]; This Way I Salute You [2004]) and the broadly popular Oswald Mtshali (b. 1940; Sounds of a Cowhide Drum [1971]; Fireflames [1980]) are forerunners of the dramatic change in and copious output of Af. poetry after 1970. The influence of Af. Am. musical and poetic forms, esp. jazz, rap, blues, and the renaissance of the 1960s, looking back to the Harlem Ren., is often evident. Immediacy may be reinforced by incl. phrases from South Af. langs. or Afrikaans or by directly addressing the reader as a compatriot. Major writers include poets who wrote in solidarity with the Black Consciousness movement's emphasis on the affirmation of black cultural values in the face of statebased terror and oppression, such as Mongane Serote (b. 1944; Yakhal'Inkomo [1972]; Tsetlo [1974]; No Baby Must Weep [1975]; Behold Mama, Flowers [1978]; The Night Keeps Winking [1982]; Freedom Lament and Song [1997]; History Is the Home Address [2004]); Sipho Sepamla (1932–2007; Hurry Up to It! [1975]; The Soweto I Love [1977]; From Gorée to Soweto [1988]); Mafika Pascal Gwala (b. 1946; Jol'iinkomo [1977]; No More Lullabies [1982]); James Matthews (b. 1929; Cry Rage [1972]; No Time for Dreams [1977]; Flames and Flowers [2000]; Age Is a Beautiful Phase [2008]); Daniel P. Kunene (b. 1923; Pirates Have Become Our Kings [1978]; A Seed Must Seem to Die [1981]); and the jazz-influenced Wopko Pieter Jensma (b. 1939; Sing for Our Execution [1973]; Where White Is the Colour Where Black Is the Number [1974]; I Must Show You My Clippings [1977]).

Postapartheid poets in South Africa include Ingrid de Kok (b. 1951; Familiar Ground [1988], Transfer [1997], Terrestrial Things [2002]), Kelwyn Sole (b. 1951; The Blood of Our Silence [1988], Projections in the Past Tense [1992], Love That Is Night [1998], Mirror and Water Gazing [2001]), Gail Dendy (b. 1957; Assault and the Moth [1993]), Gabeba Baderoon (b. 1969; The Dream in the Next Body [2005], The Museum of Ordinary Life [2005], A Hundred Silences [2006]), and the performance poet Rampolokeng (Horns for Hondo [1990], Rap Master Supreme — Word Bomber in the Extreme [1997], The Bavino Sermons [1999]). See SOUTH AFRICA, POETRY OF.

Politics and economics have denied a wide international audience to the poetry of South Africa's anglophone neighbors. Malawian figures include David Rubadiri (b. 1930; An African Thunderstorm [2004]), Frank M. Chipasula (b. 1949; Visions and Reflections [1972]; O Earth Wait for Me [1984]; Nightwatcher, Nightsong [1986]; Whispers in the Wings [2001]), Jack Mapanje (b. 1944; Of Chameleons and Gods [1981], Beasts of Nalunga [2007]), and Steve Chimombo (b. 1945; A Referendum of the Forest Creatures [1993], Napolo and Other Poems [2009]).

(Continues...)

Excerpted from The Princeton Handbook of World Poetries by Roland Greene, Stephen Cushman. Copyright © 2017 Princeton University Press. Excerpted by permission of PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Princeton University Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2016
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0691170517
• ISBN 13: 9780691170510
• Einband: Tapa blanda
• Anzahl der Seiten: 720
• Herausgeber: Greene Roland, Cushman Stephen
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar