Medieval Arabic Praise Poetry Ibn Al-Rumi and the Patron's Redemption

Cover
 Half Title
 Title Page
 Copyright Page
 Table of Contents
 Preface
 Acknowledgments
 Abbreviations
 Note on quotes and translations
 Note on transliteration and dating
 Glossary
 Part I: Setting the stage
 1. The background: Poetry and poets in early Abbasid society
 The audience
 The patrons
 The poets
 2. The form: The Abbasid praise qasīda
 History of research
 The textual approach
 The intertextual approach
 The contextual approach
 Constraint and variety
 3. The approach: Madīh and pragmatics
 Literary speech situation (context) and genre
 The criteria and types of poetic dialogue. Excursus into the theory of speech actsCharacterization, dramaturgy, poetic argument, and ethics
 4. The protagonists: Ibn al-Rūmī and his patron \'Ubaydallāh b. \'Abdallāh
 5. The madīh exchanged between Ibn al-Rūmī and \'Ubaydallāh
 The practice of praise
 A note on the textual sources
 Themes of the Qasā\'id
 The strophe
 The antistrophe
 The metastrophe
 The speech acts of praise
 Part II: Speech and characterization
 6. Speech as action
 Speech of humans
 Speech figuratively attributed to inanimate objects and abstract concepts
 Figurative reinterpretation of verbal acts. 7. The dramatis personaeFictional personae
 The accuser
 White hair
 Youth
 Minor fictional personae
 Historical personae
 The patron
 The poet
 Part III: The dramaturgy
 8. The scene
 The dialogue scene
 The extended dialogue scene
 The unintroduced dialogue
 The address
 The evocation
 The monologue
 The implicit and impersonal speaker
 9. The episode and its witnesses
 Witnesses speaking or addressed in the episode
 Witnesses quoted in the episode
 10. \'The passion of him whose parting has grayed is affectation\' (L191)
 11. \'They aimed at my heart from the gaps of veils\' (L1042). Part IV: Verbal ornament12. Supporting figures of speech
 Syntactic figures
 Anaphora
 Reprise
 Semantic figures
 Sententia and analogy
 The recurring motif
 13. Phantasmagoria
 Part V: Ibn al-Rūmī\'s ethics of patronage
 14. In the mirror of madīh
 The scenes between poet and patron
 The historical relationship
 The function of the poem
 15. Mutual duties and rights of benefactor and protégé
 Examples of scenes: A1160, F1243, and A1510
 First example
 Second example
 Third example
 16. Acts and words between panegyrist and model
 Acts and words, their order and congruity. The praise matches the actsThe praise cannot live up to the acts
 The acts themselves compose praise through causal hyperbole
 The acts claim ancient praise and re-attribute it to the patron
 Praise precedes the acts
 Examples of scenes: A694, F1373\', A464/F1373\', and A1171/A212/L215
 The acts precede the praise, and the praise matches them
 The praise cannot live up to the acts
 The acts themselves compose praise through causal hyperbole
 The acts claim ancient praise and re-attribute it to \'Ubaydallāh
 Praise preceding acts and not yet redeemed
 Recapitulation.