Table of Contents

Foreword by Gregory Nagy Preface PART ONE: PRESENTING THE RITUAL PARADIGM 1. Voicing the Mute Immortals: The Mu'allaqah of Labid and the Rite of Passage 2. Eating the Dead / The Dead Eating: Blood Vengeance as Sacrifice PART TWO: THE PARADIGM OF PASSAGE MANQUE 3. Ta'abbata Sharran and Oedipus: A Paradigm of Passage Manque 4. Archetype and Attribution: AI-Shanfara and the Lamiyyat al-'Arab PART THREE: ORALITY AND GENDER IN THE ELEGY 5. The Obligations and Poetics of Gender: Women's Elegy and Blood Vengeance 6. Memory Inflamed: Muhalhil ibn Rabi'ah and the War of al-Basus PART FOUR: THE MASTER POEM 7. Regicide and Retribution: The Mu'allaqah of Imru' al-Qays Appendix of Arabic Texts Works Cited Index

About the Author

Suzanne Pinckney Stetkevych is Professor in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Comparative Literature at Indiana University. Her books include The Poetics of Islamic Legitimacy: Myth, Gender and Ceremony in the Classical Arabic Ode; Early Islamic Poetry and Poetics: The Formation of the Classical Islamic World; and The Mantle Odes: Arabic Praise Poems to the Prophet Muhammad.

Reviews

"The Mute Immortals Speak will be of interest to anyone seriously interested in Islam. It should also engage a wide, interdisciplinary audience through its demonstration that at the heart of the qasidah and its satellite genres is a central human dilemma involving human identity, conflict, belonging, and community."-International Journal of Middle East Studies "In this analysis of the great Arabic language classics, the pre-Islamic ode, or qasidah, Suzanne Pinckney Stetkevych ventures into such various fields as anthropology, religion, gender studies, history, philology, and folklore to augment her effectiveness as a literary theorist. Combining insights gleaned using the tools of these many disciplines, she has produced a brilliantly original and thought provoking analysis... By giving voice to the mute immortals, Stetkevych has made these pre-Islamic masterworks accessible to a wider readership. In shedding much-needed light on these poems, the ethos of which has suffused the Arabic literary tradition since the beginning of Islam, Stetkevych has opened a door to understanding the Arab world."-American Anthropologist