Hello, Dick,
Living where I do, I've often thought of trying to write something in one of the traditional forms. My grasp of Arabic poetics is as tenous as my grasp of FussHa Arabic, and understanding that Arabic poetry relies on quantitive metre, I have all but given up on the idea - at least in something approaching the original style - or at least until recently.
Something that did spring to mind recently was the use of polysyllabic words that in some ways reflect the case endings of classical Arabic. (My knowledge of Persian extends to three faltering words of welcome in modern Farsi, but I expect it would follow much the same pattern given the linguistic inter-relatedness of Arabic, Persian and Urdu)
The 'oon' (to take one case ending) suffixes of many classical Arabic words, to me to have the same feel as '-ation' suffixed words in English. They also mimic well, I think, the trisyllabic roots of the Arabic and the hypnotic effect of so many same end-sounds. To get to the point, do you feel using words such as these, get closer to the quantative feel of Arabic poetry? Or do you believe we need to forget ever trying to get even remotely close to the sound of a formal Ghazal?
Nigel
|