zajal

(Zéjel)

   The Arabic zajal (known in Spanish as the zéjel) was a popular verse form that originated in Muslim Spain in the 12th century. Like the muwashshah (see KHARJA), the zajal was a strophic form—that is, it was built of several stanzas, usually five to six or more. The opening stanza introduced a theme that was developed in subsequent stanzas, and the poem ended with a repetition of the rhyme scheme of the opening stanza. A kharja, or refrain, might also be part of the poem.What particularly distinguished the zajal from the muwashshah was that the latter was written in classical Arabic,while the zajal was in colloquial Arabic, and therefore also included Spanish vocabulary, particularly in the kharja. The zajal, therefore, was influenced by the non-Arab speech of the poet’s everyday world. The name zajal seems to derive from a word meaning “to utter a cry or happy noise.” The inventor of the genre, at least as a literary rather than a purely popular oral form, was the wandering singer Ibn Quzman (ca. 1078–1160), who used the form for all kinds of poetry, including eulogizing his patrons. The zajals were composed to be sung, and the earliest zajal music manuscripts date from the 13th century. The form eventually became popular throughout the Arab world. It also became a popular Spanish form of the late Middle Ages, where it was called the zéjel. It was imitated, as well, by Hebrew poets in Spain and elsewhere.

   Bibliography

   ■ Irwin, Robert, ed.Night and Horses and the Desert: An Anthology of Classical Arabic Literature. Woodstock, N.Y.: Overlook Press, 1999.

   ■ Stern, Samuel Miklos.Hispano-Arabic Strophic Poetry. Edited by L. P. Harvey. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974.