Kurdish Music as Literature: Some Historical Considerations
-
Jon E. Bullock
Abstract
For decades, scholars of Kurdish oral history have stressed the importance of the enduring relationship between Kurdish music and poetry.1 Nevertheless, this relationship is often described as if it were one in which musical practice merely served as a vehicle for the documentation and dissemination of poetic works of value, or in which largely illiterate musicians simply preserved the works of famous poets for future generations. This chapter argues that music has played a far more important role in Kurdish cultural history, and that histories of Kurdish music-making are an essential component of any emerging history of Kurdish literature. The chapter begins by highlighting the importance of music in the 8th-century formation of Al-Khalīl b. Aḥmad’s metrical system of ‘arūḍ (prosody), which would ultimately influence Arab, Persian, and Kurdish poets alike.2 Centuries later, musical practice once again transformed the history of Kurdish poetry as ‘Ebdułła Goran turned to genres of folk music as inspiration for new twentieth-century forms of Sorani prosody.3 What follows examines the ways in which musical practice in the century preceding Goran’s reforms both reflected and diverged from the unique challenges of Kurdish language standardization and the development of a Kurdish literary medium. Furthermore, it argues that while political environments differed across time and space, music transcended national borders in ways that printed texts could not-and did not-, in many cases reaching a far wider audience, or “listening public.”4 This chapter therefore offers an understanding of Kurdish music not only as a means of cultural preservation, but also as a marker of local or regional difference, a manifestation of nationalist sentiment, a means of engagement with broader Middle Eastern cultural traditions, and a catalyst for change within the Kurdish poetic tradition itself.
Abstract
For decades, scholars of Kurdish oral history have stressed the importance of the enduring relationship between Kurdish music and poetry.1 Nevertheless, this relationship is often described as if it were one in which musical practice merely served as a vehicle for the documentation and dissemination of poetic works of value, or in which largely illiterate musicians simply preserved the works of famous poets for future generations. This chapter argues that music has played a far more important role in Kurdish cultural history, and that histories of Kurdish music-making are an essential component of any emerging history of Kurdish literature. The chapter begins by highlighting the importance of music in the 8th-century formation of Al-Khalīl b. Aḥmad’s metrical system of ‘arūḍ (prosody), which would ultimately influence Arab, Persian, and Kurdish poets alike.2 Centuries later, musical practice once again transformed the history of Kurdish poetry as ‘Ebdułła Goran turned to genres of folk music as inspiration for new twentieth-century forms of Sorani prosody.3 What follows examines the ways in which musical practice in the century preceding Goran’s reforms both reflected and diverged from the unique challenges of Kurdish language standardization and the development of a Kurdish literary medium. Furthermore, it argues that while political environments differed across time and space, music transcended national borders in ways that printed texts could not-and did not-, in many cases reaching a far wider audience, or “listening public.”4 This chapter therefore offers an understanding of Kurdish music not only as a means of cultural preservation, but also as a marker of local or regional difference, a manifestation of nationalist sentiment, a means of engagement with broader Middle Eastern cultural traditions, and a catalyst for change within the Kurdish poetic tradition itself.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Acknowledgements VII
- Contents IX
- Introduction 1
- Shared Ownership and Kurdish Folklore 5
- Resist Diyarbakır, Resist: Exploring Kurdish Literary Intelligentsia in Diyarbakır 19
- Tales of Woe, Ruthless Foes, and Patriotic Heroes: A Historical-Literary Study of Kurdish (Dis)unity in the Early Modern Era 39
- Sherko Bekas and the Emergence of Postnational Kurdish Literature 97
- Re-evaluation of the Yārsān Texts and its Impact on Kurdish Literature 129
- Kurdish Music as Literature: Some Historical Considerations 147
- Kurdish Women’s Feminist Poetry: Developing a Voice in Southern Kurdistan and the Diaspora 171
- Kurdish Women in Fiction and a History of Violence, Displacement, and Migration 193
- General Index 215
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Acknowledgements VII
- Contents IX
- Introduction 1
- Shared Ownership and Kurdish Folklore 5
- Resist Diyarbakır, Resist: Exploring Kurdish Literary Intelligentsia in Diyarbakır 19
- Tales of Woe, Ruthless Foes, and Patriotic Heroes: A Historical-Literary Study of Kurdish (Dis)unity in the Early Modern Era 39
- Sherko Bekas and the Emergence of Postnational Kurdish Literature 97
- Re-evaluation of the Yārsān Texts and its Impact on Kurdish Literature 129
- Kurdish Music as Literature: Some Historical Considerations 147
- Kurdish Women’s Feminist Poetry: Developing a Voice in Southern Kurdistan and the Diaspora 171
- Kurdish Women in Fiction and a History of Violence, Displacement, and Migration 193
- General Index 215
