01567nas a2200133 4500008004100000245010200041210006900143260001200212300001200224490000800236520103300244100001801277856013801295 2007 eng d00aPoetry of Politics and Mourning: Mahmoud Darwish’s Genre-Transforming Tribute to Edward W. Said0 aPoetry of Politics and Mourning Mahmoud Darwish s GenreTransform c10/2007 a1447-620 v1223 a

This essay provides an analysis of “Tibaq,” an elegy written in Edward W. Said’s honor by the acclaimed Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish. Noting that the poem exhibits aspects of a number of genres and demonstrates Darwish’s generally innovative approach to traditional literary forms, I consider how he has transformed the marthiya, the elegiac genre that has been part of the Arabic literary tradition since the pre-Islamic era. I argue that Darwish used the elegy-writing occasion to comment on Said’s politics and to make respectful use of his critical methods, particularly his interdisciplinary borrowing of counterpoint, a concept typically used in music analysis. By reworking the conventionalmarthiya to represent Said’s life in exile and his diverse body of work and by putting his contrapuntal method into practice in the conversation depicted in the poem, Darwish elegizes a long-lasting friendship and shores up a shared political cause. (RD)

1 aDyer, Rebecca uhttps://genreacrossborders.org/biblio/poetry-politics-and-mourning-mahmoud-darwish%E2%80%99s-genre-transforming-tribute-edward-w-said