Veiled Sentiments

Abu-Lughod recognizes that poetry for the Bedouins is not the only means of expressing emotions; rather, it is a way to express “sentiments radically different from those they express about the same situations using nonpoetic language” (186). Both modes, common discourse and poetic discourse, address personal life in diverse ways. Abu-Lughod summarizes the Foucauldian definition of “discourse” to explain these sets of language that she teases apart.

Using a previous example, Abu-Lughod explains that poems can reveal sentiments (like sadness) that differ from those that societal conventions might demand (like anger) in charged circumstances. She uses stories of two separate women who are older than those at the centers of the stories, like first wives or older aunts. These stories illustrate how women might use or share poems that express their true sentiments, even though their outward actions and speech appear “to ignore […] or not to care” about the circumstances that cause them stress (197). In either case, the woman will lose face if she expresses disappointment for the lack of respect or position afforded her; sharing the poems is a way to “[confess] how wounded” she feels (197).

When they mourn a loved one,