Sunday, January 1, 2023

Paronomasia: A poetic device

In Arabic poetry:

"Most Arabic words are built around three consonant roots, which can be manipulatd to create different meanings and parts of speech. In Arabic poetics, paronomasia (jinās) entails the juxtaposition of words that share the same three consonant roots in order to draw out surprising connections of meaning and sound. Since paronomasia relies on the sounds and structure of the Arabic language, it is notoriously difficult to render in English translation."

Eric Calderwood. Colonial al-Andalus: Spain and the Making of Modern Moroccan Culture. Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2018. Chapter 2.

In Hebrew poetry too:

"The phrase Jonathan Sacks translates here as 'forever and all time,' and others have translated as 'forever and ever,' is lealam uleolomei almaia. Both are attempts to convey the sense of the prayer's three-fold intensification of the Aramaic form of the Hebrew word olam, which in the Bible was often used to mean permanent or indefinite or everlasting existence, though by the time of the Kaddish's composition it had also come to denote the world or universe."
"Kaddish and Eternity," by Abraham Socher, in Liberal and Illiberal Arts: Essays (Mostly Jewish). Philadelphia: Paul Dry Books, 2022. pp. 226–227.

illustration of a bird

Night Light monthly poetry reading on YouTube

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