Ḥassāní couplets called givān, or brevity turned into poetic expressivity
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17561/blo.v13.7389Keywords:
le-ġna, couplets, givān, Ḥassāniyya dialectAbstract
In the Arab world, popular literature exists alongside literature written in classical Arabic. Popular literature, composed in the different dialects of each of these countries, is transmitted orally and, in most cases, lacks a written record. This literature includes, in addition to popular poetry, tales, legends, proverbs, riddles, etc. In the Maghreb countries, popular poetry is known as al-malḥūn (Algeria, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia), and le-ġna in Mauritania. In this paper we discuss the characteristics of le-ġna, its metres, its themes, and, finally, we present, by way of example, a sample of couplets called givān (singular: gāv), many of them by anonymous authors due to the oral transmission of this poetry.
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