Court poets functioned as pre-modern public relations officers

Evidence

In pre-modern times, poetry was in many ways the most interesting and the most elusive of the means of propaganda. In the days before journalists and public relations officers, poets fulfilled these functions for tribes, chiefs and rulers. They had been engaged in these tasks for a long time. The Roman Emperor Augustus, for example, had his court poets in Rome doing public relations work for the empire in general and the emperor in particular. One might even argue that Virgil’s great epic, the Aeneid, is a public relations job for the Roman imperial idea. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 463 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

A much more accurate idea of the image of al-Mu izz, as seen by his followers and projected to his new subjects, may be found in the poems of Ibn Ha¯ni’, his Andalusian panegyrist. The poet, in medieval Islamic courts, often had an im­ portant public function. As panegyrist, he praised his patron; as satirist, he abused his enemies. In a society that was sophisticated and literate, but without mass media, poetry could to some extent take their place; the poet devised, for publication and dissemination, versions of events or sketches of personalities which were vivid, memorable—and slanted. He was the propagandist, or, as we might now say, the public relations officer and image-maker of the ruler, and his compositions can tell us a great deal about the policies and intentions of rulers and sometimes even about the responses of the ruled. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 369 (#expands, via linked claim)

The most universal is the poem. Nowadays, rulers employ public relations advisers or consultants. In classical Islamic times, they employed poets. The old histories of literature tell many stories of vast sums being paid by rulers to poets. Normally these were not expressions of literary appreciation, but were payments for services rendered. In a society where there are no mass media, radio, television, or newspapers, there are two ways by which the ruler can address the mass of his subjects: poetry and inscriptions. Inscrip­ tions are there for whoever can read them, or have them read to him, and they proclaim the ruler’s greatness, his achievements, and other things he would have his subjects believe about him. But the poet serves the same purpose rather more effectively, producing memorable and easily memorized verses lauding the great­ ness of his master. A good deal of classical poetry is PR: poems written in praise or eulogy, usually for a political or military chief. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1931 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Court poets functioned as royal propagandists before mass media.; Poets served as the public relations professionals of the pre-modern world — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting…, 463; Court poetry functioned as pre-mass-media propaganda and image-making for rulers. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting…, 369 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Poets served as the public relations professionals of the pre-modern world #corroborates (1.00) — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 463
• Court poetry functioned as pre-mass-media propaganda and image-making for rulers. #expands (0.95) — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 369
• Patronized poets functioned as classical Islam’s public-relations apparatus for rulers. #corroborates (0.95) — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1931