[Andalusi Studies] Query regarding women's "swinging songs" (chansons de l'escarpolette)

[Dwight Reynolds]

Women's "swinging songs":

Gilbert Meynier in his "*L'Algérie, cœur du Maghreb classique. De
l'ouverture islamo-arabe au repli (698-1518)*", éditions La Découverte,
Paris, 2011 includes the following list of genres of Arabo-Andalusi poetry:

*"Fleurissent, outre les quatrains classiques (rubâ'îyyât), les waçla(s),
suites de pièces vocales et instrumentales, les panégyriques en vers
(qaçîda[s]), le balancement des murajjahât, le scintillement du genre
muwashshah, chansons de quelques strophes de contenu apologétique ou/et
amoureux, et le zajal, poésie familière, plus sensuelle et plus crue, à
distance du surmoi courtois européen."* (p.126)

In a footnote explaining the term *murajjahât *he writes: "*Littéralement,
chant des femmes qui se balancent sur l'escarpolette (marjûha)*".
[Literally, songs of women swinging on swings]

These songs are known in Algeria as *ḥawfī* (see for example, Mourad
Yelles-Chaouche, *Le Ḥawfī: poésie feminine et tradition orale au Maghreb.
*Algiers: Office des Publications Universitaires, 1990).  And I have noted
in several recent publications the similarity between these poems and the
bilingual kharjas found in some Andalusi muwashshahat (for example, *The
Musical Heritage of al-Andalus*, 2022, pp. 160-61) -- short couplet,
tercets or quatrains composed in the voice of a young unmarried girl, often
complaining to her mother about the trials of love, her desires for a
handsome young man, or complaining about the way men treat her.

At the time, however, I had never heard or read any reference to Andalusi
"swinging" songs -- I have not argued for any direct (i.e., genealogical)
connection, but merely noted the similarity and hypothesized that such oral
genres of women's poetry may have been common in various regions of the
western Mediterranean.

*Have any of you come across references to this as a genre of Andalusi
poetry or know of examples?*

Many thanks,
Dwight


******************************************************************
Dwight F. Reynolds, Distinguished Professor
Arabic Language &  Literature
Department of Religious Studies
University of California, Santa Barbara
<dreynold at ucsb.edu>
******************************************************************
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.uoregon.edu/pipermail/andalusi_studies/attachments/20230717/80642902/attachment.html>