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Notes on a Middle-Arabic ‘Joseph’ poem

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

Extract

Tales of the Prophets, in prose and verse, are a well-marked genre in Arabic literature. These productions were designed for a popular audience of mixed character, not solely for the intellectual élite. Side by side with the literary manifestations of the genre, there was a long tradition of oral recitations on these themes by professional quṣṣāṣ, which range along with popular epics like the Sīrat 'Antar, etc. All these have a ‘Homeric’ quality, in that while there was a rough approximation to an ‘established’ text, no one author can be pinned down; they are the end-product of innumerable recitations over the centuries, each of which may have contributed something to them. Recorded specimens of this folk-literature are scanty, and are difficult to assess linguistically, since the Arabic script is extremely ill-adapted for recording non-literary language, and the mere attempt at recording it in writing imposes a deceptive veneer of ‘classicism’ on its appearance. A piece in verse is therefore particularly valuable, because the metrical structure reveals a good deal about how it was read.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 1977

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References

1 The story of Joseph in Arabic verse: the Leeds Arabic manuscript 347, edited with a translation and note by R. Y. Ebied and M. J. L. Young. (Annual of Leeds Oriental Society. Supplement III.) [vii], 58 pp., 3 plates. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1975.Google Scholar

2 As will be obvious below, the scribe has in many places attempted to ‘classicize’ the forms, but has completely ruined the metre thereby.