Home > Catalogue > Annali di Ca’ Foscari. Serie orientale > 57 | 2021 > Notes on Musical Imagery in the Poetry of Jāmi

Annali di Ca’ Foscari. Serie orientale | Vol. 57 | June 2021

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Research Article

Notes on Musical Imagery in the Poetry of Jāmi

Alessia Dal Bianco    Sapienza Università di Roma, Italia    

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abstract

The poet Nur-al-Din ʿAbd-al-Raḥmān Jāmi (1414-92) is known to have been proficient in music theory; he also wrote a Resāla-ye musiqi (Treatise on Music Theory). In his poems he displayed an extensive and precise use of musical terms. To probe further into the elements of musical imagery, I scanned through his maṯnavis Haft awrang (The Seven Thrones) in search of lines dedicated to musical modes, instruments, and performers. Considering that musical imagery had a long-established tradition before his time, I pursued a comparative investigation and commented on some lines by way of examples. Finally, I argue that literary conventions shaped Jāmi’s poetry more than his expertise in music theory did.

Published
June 30, 2021
Accepted
Sept. 17, 2020
Submitted
Aug. 13, 2020
Language
EN

Keywords: Musical instruments • Resāla-ye musiqi • Nur-al-Din ʿAbd-al-Raḥmān Jāmi • Poetic imagery • Persian poetry

permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/AnnOr/2385-3042/2021/01/008

Copyright: © 2021 Alessia Dal Bianco. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.