So there is this article by said samatar on something called "gabay hayir" which he translates as mock-heroic. And I'd skimmed over it before but never really gave it much attention. But if you google mock heroic it's a genre of satire that emerged in the 1600s and 1700s where people got tired of the older epic poems and made satirical versions by referencing those older epic poems . It's an incredible complex form requiring familiarity with the previous literary conventions and poem your copying. It struck me as a sign of how well developed Somali poetry was and how well developed the formal literary conventions must be.
Somali poetic tradition
- Thread starter Midas
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