poetry question

[Jeanne Gillespie]

Richard Haly did some very interesting work that provides a good start on
Nahuatl poetics related to drum rhythms and syllables from the Cantares
mexicanos and the drumming notation these texts contain.  Check out: Haly,
Richard. ³The Poetics of the Aztecs.² New Scholar 10 (1986): 85-133. (an
³oldie but goodie²). These texts also contain wonderful examples of how
Nahuatl poetic forms were adapted to colonial realities.
Jeanne

-- 
Jeanne L. Gillespie, Ph.D.
The University of Southern Mississippi
Associate Dean, College of Arts and Letters
Hattiesburg, Mississippi
http://www.usm.edu/colleges/coal/
Jeanne.gillespie at usm.edu
601.266.4315




On 10/17/06 10:06 AM, "John F. Schwaller" <schwallr at potsdam.edu> wrote:

> At 07:14 PM 10/16/2006, you wrote:
>> I'm embarrassed to ask, but can certain syllables become long by
>> 'position' like they can in Latin (admittedly a wholly different
>> language)?  Is the most important thing about poetry in Classical
>> Nahuatl the metrification of syllabic feet, that is, the way 'feet'
>> are divided into predictable series of long and short syllables
>> (disregarding syllabic stress)?
>> 
>> When the Spanish missionaries introduced their hymns, were any
>> of these translated into Nahuatl?
> 
> 
> 
> These are really important questions, and unfortunately know one knows all of
> the answers. 
> Syllables do not seem to become long, and the metre is not entirely clear,
> unlike European models with iambic pentameter, or in Spanish where we measure
> the number of syllables in the line.
> 
>  Fran Karttunen and Jim Lockhart considered many of these questions in their
> article in Estudios de Cultura Nahuatl:
> 
> Karttunen, Frances and James Lockhart, ³La estructura de la poesía Nahuatl
> vista por sus variantes,² Estudios de Cultura Nahuatl, vol. 14 (1980), pp.
> 15-64.
> 
> You can also see my article "The Pre-Hispanic Poetics of Sahagun's Psalmodia
> Cristiana, also in ECN vol. 36 (2005), pp. 67-86.
> 
> We know that some European hymns were translated into Nahuatl, but the most
> famous are Sahagun's Nahuatl hymns in the Psalmodia
> 
> 
> John F. Schwaller
> President
> SUNY Potsdam
> 44 Pierrepont Ave.
> Potsdam, NY  13676
> 
> 315-267-2100
> 315-267-2496 fax
> 
> 
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