GREEK PRAISE POETRY AND THE RHETORIC OF GREEK DIVINITY

2021 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 90-90
Keyword(s):  
Praise Poetry

Aspects of style and meaning in the analysis of a Hausa Poem

1982 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 546-570
Author(s):  
G. L Furniss
Keyword(s):  
Political Party ◽  
Verbal Art ◽  
Praise Poetry ◽  
The Way

Much of modern Hausa verse is either didactic in tone or is written in praise of God, a person, or a political party. Didacticism and praise are often seen as separate descriptive labels for poetry, song or other forms of verbal art. Yet treatment of topic may in fact be very similar in didactic and in praise poetry; certainly in Hausa this is the case. The aspect of treatment that shows this similarity is the association of the message/theme/topic with words conveying the ideas ‘good’, ‘worth’, ‘quality’ or words indicating their opposites ‘bad’, ‘worthlessness’, ‘lack of quality’. This association is made rather in the way that a product is sold by being linked by the advertiser to things ‘attractive’, ‘of value’, ‘of use’, etc., except that the valueloaded words in Hausa are drawn from a moral and religious code very different from those ‘codes’used to sell soap.

The Art of Complicity in Martial and Statius

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erik Gunderson
Keyword(s):  
Political Power ◽  
Comprehensive Overview ◽  
Contemporary Life ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Praise Poetry ◽  
Over Time

This book examines the relationship between politics and aesthetics in two poets from the reign of Domitian. It offers a comprehensive overview of the Epigrams of Martial and the Siluae of Statius. The praise of power that one finds is not something forced upon these poems. It is also not a mere appendage to these works. Instead, power and poetry as a pair are a fundamental dyad that can and should be traced throughout the two collections. The dyad is present even when the emperor himself is not the topic of discussion. In Martial the portrait of power is constantly shifting. Poetic play takes up the topic of political power and “plays around with it.” The initial relatively sportive attitude darkens over time. Late in the game the poems depict ecstasies of humiliation. After Domitian dies the project tries to get back to the old games, but it cannot. Statius’ Siluae merge the lies one tells to power with the lies of poetry more generally. Poetic mastery and political mastery cannot be dissociated. The glib, glitzy poetry of contemporary life articulates a radical modernism that is self-authorizing and so complicit with a power whose structure it mirrors. The criticism of such poetry is itself a problem. What does it mean to praise praise poetry? To celebrate celebrations? The book opens and closes with a meditation upon the dangers of complicit criticism and the seductions of a discourse of pure art in a world where the art is anything but pure.

Introduction

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-28
Author(s):  
Erik Gunderson
Keyword(s):  
The Political ◽  
Will To Power ◽  
Praise Poetry ◽  
Over Time

This is an introduction to the problem of reading praise poetry. This poetry is not sincere. It is hyperbolic. It flatters power. This poetry is easy to dismiss. It is also convenient to dismiss it. One needs to find ways to integrate readings of Martial and Statius that set aside a dichotomy between the political poems and the artsy poems. The two categories are not polar opposites, they are not even disjunct. Instead they are in constant contact and communication. One also needs to find tools that will facilitate a discussion of tropes and postures and masks and the political import of cynical dissimulation. The general problems are stated and then particular modifications that are salient to either Martial or Statius are outlined. Martial is a “nugatory” poet. Statius is a poet of “high art.” The poetry of the former has a history that we can watch unfold over time. The verses of the latter offer a comprehensive portrait of a whole glorious age, including, of course, the beauty of both power and of poems about power. The poetic projects are complicit with power. They may dissemble, hold things in reserve, and likewise turn away from power, but they nevertheless are playing a game enabled by power and are part of the process of power’s legitimation and reproduction. Furthermore, the poetic will to power is reminiscent of the imperial will to power.

Poetry as Prayer

2019 ◽  
pp. 159-196
Author(s):  
Hamsa Stainton
Keyword(s):  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
South Asian ◽  
Asian Religions ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Praise Poetry

This chapter develops the study of poetry as prayer. It reviews recent scholarship on prayer and evaluates the perils and potential of prayer as a category of analysis in the study of South Asian religions. Then, focusing on an important and previously unstudied text from fourteenth-century Kashmir—Jagaddhara Bhaṭṭa’s Stutikusumāñjali (Flower-Offering of Praise)—it analyzes various types of prayer sheltered under the umbrella of the stotra genre. In addition, it explores two creative ways of interpreting poetic prayer. First, it examines how Jagaddhara dramatizes Śiva’s interactions with Sarasvatī as the beautifully embodied form of poetry. Then it analyzes praise-poetry as a type of verbal prasāda, an offering received by a deity and then enjoyed by a community of devotees. Finally, the chapter argues that some of the evidence from Kashmir challenges a persistent view in the study of Hinduism that “true” prayer is a spontaneous outpouring of the heart.

Allow Peace to Reign: Musical Genres of Fújì and Islamic Allegorise Nigerian Unity in the Era of Boko Haram

2020 ◽  
Vol 52 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
DEBRA L. KLEIN
Keyword(s):  
Popular Music ◽  
Dance Music ◽  
Peaceful Coexistence ◽  
Boko Haram ◽  
Music Genres ◽  
Muslim Communities ◽  
Musical Genres ◽  
Praise Poetry ◽  
Cultural Fusion

AbstractA proliferation of popular music genres flourished in post-independence Nigeria: highlife, jùjú, Afrobeat, and fújì. Originating within Yorùbá Muslim communities, the genres of fújì and Islamic are Islamised dance music genres characterised by their Arabic-influenced vocal style, Yorùbá praise poetry, driving percussion, and aesthetics of incorporation, flexibility, and cultural fusion. Based on analysis of interviews and performances in Ìlọrin in the 2010s, this article argues that the genres of fújì and Islamic allegorise Nigerian unity—an ideology of tolerance, peaceful coexistence, and equity—while exposing the gap between the aspiration for unity and everyday inequities shaped by gender and morality.

Contextualizing the Knútsdrápur: skaldic praise-poetry at the court of Cnut

2001 ◽  
Vol 30 ◽  
pp. 145-179 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Townend
Keyword(s):  
Focal Point ◽  
The Other ◽  
Praise Poetry

It is generally recognized that during the reign of Cnut the Danish king's court came to represent the focal point for skaldic composition and patronage in the Norse-speaking world. According to the later Icelandic Skáldatal or ‘List of Poets’, no fewer than eight skalds were remembered as having composed for Cnut: Sigvatr Þórðarson, Óttarr svarti, Þórarinn loftunga, Hallvarðr háreksblesi, Bersi Torfuson, Steinn Skaptason, Arnórr Þórðarson jarlaskáld, and Óðarkeptr. Comparing this list with the extant poetic remains, one arrives at the following collection of skaldic praise-poems (some fragmentary) in honour of Cnut: Sigvatr Þórðarson's Knútsdrápa; Óttarr svarti's Knútsdrápa; Hallvarðr háreksblesi's Knútsdrápa; Þórarinn loftunga's Ho˛fuðlausn and Tøgdrápa; and (probably) a fragment by Arnórr jarlaskáld. Of the other poets cited in Skáldatal, no verse in honour of Cnut is extant by Bersi Torfuson, and none at all by Steinn Skaptason and Óðarkeptr.

Medieval Arabic Praise Poetry

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Beatrice Gruendler
Keyword(s):  
Praise Poetry
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