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A Theory of Reduplication: Eightfold Meters in Classical Persian Poetry

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Amr Taher Ahmed
Amr Taher Ahmed*
Affiliation:
Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University
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Abstract

It is a known fact that classical Persian poets were partial to poetic meters composed of eight feet, known as muthamman. On this topic, however, two issues remain unsolved: How did the Persian poets devise these meters in the first place? Despite their flagrant predilection for eightfold meters, why did the Persians never use such meters as sarīʿ and qarīb in this form? This paper argues that the Persians, influenced by the structure of the Arabic eightfold base meters, crafted their muthamman meters after a specific process of reduplication. This theory also accounts for the lack of eightfold sarīʿ and qarīb meters, their structure being incompatible with the reduplication process.

Type
Articles
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 50 , Issue 3 , May 2017 , pp. 391 - 414
Copyright
Copyright © Association For Iranian Studies, Inc 2017

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