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The Communal Lyric: Poetry in Devotional and Oppressed Communities
This thesis investigates the interaction between lyric and community; it asks what a communal lyric is, how it functions, and to what ends. In Chapter One, I compare Jonathan Culler’s performative model of lyric with the theory of Takhyīl as expounded by Arab philosopher-critics al-Farabi, Ibn Sina,...
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2025
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| _version_ | 1867613425143644160 |
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| access_status_str | Open Access |
| author | Yacoub, Michael N. |
| author_browse | Yacoub, Michael N. |
| author_facet | Yacoub, Michael N. |
| author_sort | Yacoub, Michael N. |
| collection | Thesis |
| description | This thesis investigates the interaction between lyric and community; it asks what a communal lyric is, how it functions, and to what ends. In Chapter One, I compare Jonathan Culler’s performative model of lyric with the theory of Takhyīl as expounded by Arab philosopher-critics al-Farabi, Ibn Sina, and al-Qartajanni to argue that a communal lyric is a form of audience-oriented public discourse distinguished by formal features that prompt the poem’s (re-)iteration and establish an interpersonal relationship with the audience in order to influence them and make shareable value claims about the world. In Chapters Two and Three I provide close-reading analyses of selected poems to show two possible relationships that the communal lyric can establish between speaker and audience: apprenticeship and acknowledgement. In Chapter Two, I analyse selected psalms and ibtihālāt (supplications), poems by George Herbert and John Donne, as well as Al-Busiri’s Burda (Mantle Ode) to show how poems function liturgically in devotional communities by situating the audience in alignment with the speaker’s perspective as apprentices in faith through their distinctive use of temporality and modes of address. In Chapter Three, I analyse five poems by Claude McKay, Dennis Brutus, Eavan Boland, Keorapetse Kgositsile, and Mahmoud Darwish, each of which is embedded in a context of racial or colonial oppression, to show how poems of oppressed communities function differently for different audiences: for members of the oppressed community, they act through apprenticeship, while for non-members, and by performing a rhetorical argument, they confront their audience demanding that audience members acknowledge an experience in which they cannot partake. In the conclusion, I trace apprenticeship and acknowledgement in two contemporary communal lyrics, Shervin Hajipour’s “Baraye” (2022) and Refaat Al-Areer’s “If I Must Die” (2023), to show the wide-reaching impact of the communal lyric on today’s world. |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oai:fount.aucegypt.edu:etds-3555 |
| institution | American University in Cairo (Egypt) |
| last_indexed | 2026-06-10T12:35:56.457Z |
| license_str | Not specified — see source repository |
| provenance_str_mv | Harvested via OAI-PMH from AUC Knowledge Fountain — bepress |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| publishDateRange | 2025 |
| publishDateSort | 2025 |
| publisher | AUC Knowledge Fountain |
| publisherStr | AUC Knowledge Fountain |
| record_format | dspace |
| source_str | AUC Knowledge Fountain — bepress |
| spelling | oai:fount.aucegypt.edu:etds-3555 The Communal Lyric: Poetry in Devotional and Oppressed Communities Yacoub, Michael N. This thesis investigates the interaction between lyric and community; it asks what a communal lyric is, how it functions, and to what ends. In Chapter One, I compare Jonathan Culler’s performative model of lyric with the theory of Takhyīl as expounded by Arab philosopher-critics al-Farabi, Ibn Sina, and al-Qartajanni to argue that a communal lyric is a form of audience-oriented public discourse distinguished by formal features that prompt the poem’s (re-)iteration and establish an interpersonal relationship with the audience in order to influence them and make shareable value claims about the world. In Chapters Two and Three I provide close-reading analyses of selected poems to show two possible relationships that the communal lyric can establish between speaker and audience: apprenticeship and acknowledgement. In Chapter Two, I analyse selected psalms and ibtihālāt (supplications), poems by George Herbert and John Donne, as well as Al-Busiri’s Burda (Mantle Ode) to show how poems function liturgically in devotional communities by situating the audience in alignment with the speaker’s perspective as apprentices in faith through their distinctive use of temporality and modes of address. In Chapter Three, I analyse five poems by Claude McKay, Dennis Brutus, Eavan Boland, Keorapetse Kgositsile, and Mahmoud Darwish, each of which is embedded in a context of racial or colonial oppression, to show how poems of oppressed communities function differently for different audiences: for members of the oppressed community, they act through apprenticeship, while for non-members, and by performing a rhetorical argument, they confront their audience demanding that audience members acknowledge an experience in which they cannot partake. In the conclusion, I trace apprenticeship and acknowledgement in two contemporary communal lyrics, Shervin Hajipour’s “Baraye” (2022) and Refaat Al-Areer’s “If I Must Die” (2023), to show the wide-reaching impact of the communal lyric on today’s world. 2025-06-18T07:00:00Z thesis application/pdf https://fount.aucegypt.edu/etds/2506 https://fount.aucegypt.edu/context/etds/article/3555/viewcontent/Michael_Nader_Yacoub_Thesis.pdf Theses and Dissertations AUC Knowledge Fountain Comparative Poetics Comparative Literature Lyric Studies Lyric Communities Theory of Lyric Arabic Poetics Takhyil Devotional Poetry Poetry of the Oppressed Arabic Language and Literature Arabic Studies Comparative Literature English Language and Literature Literature in English, Anglophone outside British Isles and North America Literature in English, British Isles Literature in English, North America, Ethnic and Cultural Minority Liturgy and Worship Philosophy of Language Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies |
| spellingShingle | Comparative Poetics Comparative Literature Lyric Studies Lyric Communities Theory of Lyric Arabic Poetics Takhyil Devotional Poetry Poetry of the Oppressed Arabic Language and Literature Arabic Studies Comparative Literature English Language and Literature Literature in English, Anglophone outside British Isles and North America Literature in English, British Isles Literature in English, North America, Ethnic and Cultural Minority Liturgy and Worship Philosophy of Language Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies Yacoub, Michael N. The Communal Lyric: Poetry in Devotional and Oppressed Communities |
| title | The Communal Lyric: Poetry in Devotional and Oppressed Communities |
| title_full | The Communal Lyric: Poetry in Devotional and Oppressed Communities |
| title_fullStr | The Communal Lyric: Poetry in Devotional and Oppressed Communities |
| title_full_unstemmed | The Communal Lyric: Poetry in Devotional and Oppressed Communities |
| title_short | The Communal Lyric: Poetry in Devotional and Oppressed Communities |
| title_sort | communal lyric poetry in devotional and oppressed communities |
| topic | Comparative Poetics Comparative Literature Lyric Studies Lyric Communities Theory of Lyric Arabic Poetics Takhyil Devotional Poetry Poetry of the Oppressed Arabic Language and Literature Arabic Studies Comparative Literature English Language and Literature Literature in English, Anglophone outside British Isles and North America Literature in English, British Isles Literature in English, North America, Ethnic and Cultural Minority Liturgy and Worship Philosophy of Language Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies |
| url | https://fount.aucegypt.edu/etds/2506 https://fount.aucegypt.edu/context/etds/article/3555/viewcontent/Michael_Nader_Yacoub_Thesis.pdf |
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