Much of what is written about
the ghazal as a poetic form in English is modelled after the Persian ghazal.
Agha Shahid Ali has propounded in great detail on how the Persian ghazal as a
form can be adapted into English. Very little has yet to be written about
adapting the Arabic form. 
Yet, the Arabic form is known
from before the 6th century AD. Therefore, it is much older than the Persian
ghazal. The relationship between the two might be compared to the relationship
between the Italian and the Spenserian sonnet.
In an attempt to remedy this
deficit, I wish to present guidelines for the Arabic poetic form that can be
adopted by poets writing in English.
There are two indispensable
elements of a classical Arabic poem – `arûd (meter) and qâfiyah (end rhyme). In
fact, the field of poetics has been traditionally called `ilm al-`arûd
wal-qâfiyah (the science of meter and rhyme).
We will look at the essential
conditions for each of these elements and how to best express them in English.
I. `Arûd (meter)
Arabic meters are quantitative,
based on a succession of voweled and unvoweled consonants.[1] In English
studies, we would be more familiar with looking at open and closed syllables,
but the Arabic meter requires looking more precisely at the individual
consonants themselves. These meters do not render themselves directly into
English metrical forms.
There are, however, numerous
metrical series offering a great variety of choices to the poet. Each metrical
series, or bahr, defines an Arabic long line (bayt), which is comprised of two balanced
hemistiches.
The following rules can be
applied to approximate the Arabic meter in English verse:
The poet has the option to
write in long lines, as is traditional, or in couplets if the poet wishes. (All
further discussion will refer to the long line and its component hemistiches. A
couplet simply presents each hemistich on a separate line.)
All the lines of a single
Arabic poem must share the same meter. Each long line must have either a
regular, fixed meter or at least a clearly audible metric or rhythmic
uniformity. This latter concession is in light of the fact that Arabic meters
can sound quite variable to the English ear, though still showing great
rhythmic uniformity. In either case, it is absolutely essential that the line
divides naturally into two balanced halves (hemistiches) that lend the long
line a medial, metrical caesura, though the poet does not have to use the
caesura syntactically. Indeed, the metrical caesura can occur in the middle of
a word. It is entirely up to the poet whether she wants to highlight or obscure
the caesura with the syntax.
The length of a verse’s
hemistich should be no shorter than a trimeter and no longer than a heptameter.
This means that if the poet is writing in accentual or accentual-syllabic
verse, the hemistich will have at least three and no more than seven metrical
accents. If the poet prefers to write in syllabic verse, the hemistich should
have between six and fourteen syllables. Of course, all lines of a single poem
will be strictly of the same length. If the poet opts for a freestyle rhythm,
the long lines must still be roughly the same length, have roughly the same
number of accents or syllables, and divide rhythmically into balanced halves.
The above rules may seem a bit
rigid, but they are just as important to a poet aspiring to write in the “pure”
form of an Arabic ghazal as the sher and radif are to a poet wishing to write
in the “pure” form of a Persian ghazal.
Be adventurous. If the essence
of the Persian ghazal is the autonomy of the sher – where each sher in the poem
is like a pearl in a necklace – the essence of the Arabic form is in the bayt’s
pronounced, exciting and long metrical rhythms.
Certainly, many an Arabic bahr
comes across as sounding strongly iambic, and a poet will be faithful to the
Arabic bayt by using a long iambic line of between six and fourteen metrical
feet. However, more complex metrical patterns can and should be aspired to.
Though it is impossible to
render the Arabic quantitative meters precisely into any accentual-syllabic
line that could be useful for writing English poetry, a person who listens to
Arabic poetry with an English ear will discern a number of clear accentual-syllabic
patterns. The following are just to give an idea of what might be heard:
- / - - / - - / - - / - || - /
- - / - - / - - / -
/ - / - / - - / - / - || / -
/ - / - - / - / -
- / - - / / - - / - - / /
- ||
- / - - / / - - / - - / / -
- - / - / - - / - / || - -
/ - / - - / - /
- / - / / - / - || - /
- / / - / -
[Key: - = unstressed syllable / = stressed syllable || = metrical caesura]
Each one of these sequences,
and an infinite number of others, can be the metrical basis for a poem of any
length. Of course, unless the poet wants a really sing-song or bouncy poem,
these meters will have to be toned down and varied a bit. (We should remember
that Arabic meters always sound a bit variable to an English ear.) Still, the
poet can be as imaginative as possible in constructing the underlying metrical
sense of the poem, and then apply the artistry of using the syntax to emphasize
or play against the medial caesura to achieve various poetic objectives.
II. Qâfiyah (end rhyme)
The rhyme must be the same for
each line of the poem (monorhyme).
Full rhyme, microrhyme, or
other form of slant rhyme may be used. In the case of slant rhyme, it should
not be so subtle as to obscure the consistency of the rhyming sound. The rhyme
is an important unifying element of the poem.
It is a common and desirable
practice – though not mandatory – that in the poem’s opening line, the first
hemistich also takes the rhyme. In this case, the first line will have a
clearly discernable syntactical pause at the hemistich.
Repeating the same rhyming
word in successive lines of the poem should be strictly avoided except when
there is a clear and overriding stylistic justification for it. The most
acceptable justification for repetition is if the poem is praising God or
pining for the beloved and the name of the subject is the rhyming word itself.
Radical enjambment between
verses that pivots syntactically on the rhyming word should be the exception,
not the rule. The rule should be at least a mild degree of syntactical autonomy
for each long line. However, the complete autonomy of the long line is not
important in the Arabic ghazal.
III. Examples of a Valid Bayt
(long line) with Qâfiyah:
In the examples below, two
short vertical line segments are used to indicate the division between the
hemistiches. The rhyme is indicated in red. In all cases, the verses could be
represented as couplets by dividing them into two lines at the hemistich.
Accentual-syllabic long lines:
How thrilling it is to receive
such a token || of honour from one whose good name is oft spoken –
Whose victuals are not so much
crabbed as they’re lobstered, || no carapace curled back concealing what’s
hidden,
But stretched out quite
plainly, obscuring no blemish || and shedding no shell in a manner unbidden;
So florid and fleshy, they’re
justly applauded || the taste and good prepping that leave tongues quite
smitten.
Unclawed and undeviled, the
tails are more succu-||-lent, chopped off the living, and tasting like chicken.
Goblins minting coinages out
of kilter...|| Treasure houses squandering gold and silver...
Elfin bankers’ empires running
rampant...|| Knights and dragons bartering helter-skelter...
Wizard-summoned policies brew
and conjure || royal edicts floundering left of centre...
Even Sir Philip Sydney can get
into the act! –
And all with teares bedeawd,
|| and eyes cast vp on hie,
O help, O help ye Gods, ||
they ghastly gan to crie.
Tho with benign aspect || sometime
didst vs behold,
Thou hast in Britons
va-||-lour tane delight of old,
Syllabic long lines:[2]
How you’re degrading me. If
you’re out to vex me || then beware, for as relentlessly I will be –
likewise I will be – bent on
despairing of you, || and with equal or even sicker fervency.
Truly, had you been me – a
perverse and twisted || and malignant take on myself admittedly –
you would have been far worse
in your fabulous rage, || but too difficult to shove aside callously.
“Freestyle” long lines:[3]
don’t let the nights hold back
what they despise || & embroil yourself in what randomness misconceives
absorb yourself in the
stillness of the days || for the static of the universe perpetually flees
& be not a child permeable
to simplicity || acting the part of a rigour that deceives
as if virtues have become rare
in the microcosm || & you are loath that they are all one sees
reveal yourself as mean
against those virtues || & expose them although misery reprieves
Staring down an Arabian road,
a dusty, || hot and dry Arabian thoroughfare –
Sandy desert, sterile pale
brown, no || tree or greenery discernable anywhere –
I can see ahead on the asphalt
a || piece of paper catching the morning glare.
Perched on top I see quite
distinctly a || mottled frog, contentedly sitting there.
I approach. The scrap of old
paper is || just some refuse discarded without care,
But the frog reveals itself
for a leaf, the || sort of leaf you find in its dark wooded lair
of late autumn on the ground
in frosty || northern forests, stirring in mists so rare,
Tossing through the chill
morning breeze as an || earthy, cool humidity fills the air.
IV. A Word on Stanzas
The pioneering poets who set
themselves to the task of adapting Persian ghazals into English saw fit not
only to write each hemistich on a separate line, but to present each set of two
hemistiches (sher) as a separate stanza – a couplet. They were certainly
correct in doing so. This is because the Persian ghazal poets, though they
usually write both hemistiches on a single line, treat the hemistich poetically
as a separate verse and the sher as an independent couplet.
By contrast, the Arab poets
approach the hemistich as a verse only when and if they feel like it. The long
line (bayt) is what matters to them, and they traditionally never grouped these
into stanzas. Therefore, I believe the question of stanzas when writing English
poems in the Arabic form is something best left to the poet’s discretion.
This is because using couplets
as stanzas with a break between them is – for adapting the Arabic form –
something totally arbitrary and contrived. It would be far more faithful to the
Arabic form to set out the long lines stacked one on top of the other without any
stanza breaks at all. The second most faithful would be to split the long line
into two at the hemistich, but still stack the lines on top of one another
without any stanza breaks.
I see no objection to setting
an Arabic ghazal in the couplet form that English-language Persian ghazals are
written in. However, once a poet is willing to make stanza breaks at all, the
poet might as well make them wherever it seems appropriate, as long as the
stanza break is not placed between the two hemistiches of a long line.
© 2007, David Jalajel
Notes
________________________________
[1] Arabic is a Semitic
language, and like Hebrew, it does not write out its vowels. It only recognizes
consonants as being actual letters. Vowels are referred to as “movement”. This
is further complicated by the fact that Arabic has long vowels that are created
by a vowel (movement) on a previous letter followed by an unvoweled (y) or (w),
or an (alif). Arabs recognize these as being long vowels, and in poetics they
make a distinction between them and other unvoweled consonants when it comes to
rhyme (qâfiyah).
For instance, the ridf – a
feature of certain qâfiyahs – must be a long vowel. However, for purely
metrical considerations (`arûd), Arab poets recognize the long vowel merely as
a voweled consonant followed by an unvoweled consonant.
[2] - [3] The syllabic example
is actually a rather complex interpretation of an Arabic bahr known as wâfir.
However, it comes across in English very much as a 24-syllable syllabic meter.
Likewise, the example that begins “Staring freestyle sound.
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