Brains Confounded by the Ode of Ab? Sh?d?f Expounded : Volume Two

Al-Shirb&

ISBN 10: 147983890X / ISBN 13: 9781479838905

Editore: New York University Press Jul 2016, 2016

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Neuware - Witty, bawdy, and vicious, Y¿suf al-Shirb¿n¿'s Brains Confounded pits the 'coarse' rural masses against the 'refined' urban population. In Volume One, al-Shirb¿n¿ describes the three rural 'types'-peasant cultivator, village man-of-religion, and rural dervish-offering anecdotes testifying to the ignorance, dirtiness, and criminality of each. In Volume Two, he presents a hilarious parody of the verse-and-commentary genre so beloved by scholars of his day, with a 47-line poem supposedly written by a peasant named Ab¿ Sh¿d¿f, who charts the rise and fall of his fortunes. Wielding the scholarly tools of elite literature, al-Shirb¿n¿ responds to the poem with derision and ridicule, dotting his satire with digressions into love, food, and flatulence. Volume Two of Brains Confounded is followed by Risible Rhymes, a concise text that includes a comic disquisition on 'rural' verse, mocking the pretensions of uneducated poets from Egypt's countryside. Risible Rhymes also examines various kinds of puzzle poems, which were another popular genre of the day, and presents a debate between scholars over a line of verse by the fourth/tenth-century poet al-Mutanabb¿. Together, Brains Confounded and Risible Rhymes offer intriguing insight into the intellectual concerns of Ottoman Egypt, showcasing the intense preoccupation with wordplay, grammar, and stylistics and shedding light on the literature of the era. An English-only edition.

Codice articolo 9781479838905

Dati bibliografici

• Titolo: Brains Confounded by the Ode of Ab? Sh?d?f Expounded : Volume Two
• Editore: New York University Press Jul 2016
• Data di pubblicazione: 2016
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 147983890X
• ISBN 13: 9781479838905
• Rilegatura: Buch
• Condizione: Neu
• Dimensioni: 236 L x 156 A x 40 P (millimetri) 236 millimetri di larghezza per 156 millimetri di altezza per 40 millimetri di profondità
• Peso: 891 grammi

Descrizione articolo

Riassunto

Unique in pre-20th-century Arabic literature for taking the countryside as its central theme, Yusuf al-Shirbini’s Brains Confounded combines a mordant satire on seventeenth-century Egyptian rural society with a hilarious parody of the verse-and-commentary genre so beloved by scholars of his day.

In Volume One, Al-Shirbini describes the three rural “types”—peasant cultivator, village man-of-religion and rural dervish—offering numerous anecdotes testifying to the ignorance, dirtiness, illiteracy, lack of proper religious understanding, and criminality of each. He follows it in Volume Two with a 47-line poem supposedly written by a peasant named Abu Shaduf, who charts the rise and fall of his fortunes and bewails, above all, the lack of access to delicious foods to which his poverty has condemned him. Wielding the scholarly tools of elite literature, al-Shirbini responds to the poem with derision and ridicule, dotting his satire of the ignorant rustic with numerous digressions into love, food, and flatulence.

Witty, bawdy, and vicious, Brains Confounded belongs to an unrecognized genre from an understudied period in Egypt’s Ottoman history, and is a work of outstanding importance for the study of pre-modern colloquial Egyptian Arabic, pitting the “coarse” rural masses against the “refined” and urbane in a contest for cultural and religious primacy, with a heavy emphasis on the writing of verse as a yardstick of social acceptability.

Informazioni sugli autori

Yusuf al-Shirbini was a well-educated Egyptian from the eleventh/seventeenth century, thought to originate from the town of Shirbin, then a significant rural center in the eastern part of Delta. Little is known about him--including his social standing and profession--beyond Brains Confounded and two other extant texts: The Pearls (Al-La'ali' wa-l-durar) and The Casting Aside of the Clods for the Unstringing of the Pearls (Tarh al-madar li-hall al-la'ali' wa-l-durar.)

Yusuf al-Shirbini was a well-educated Egyptian from the eleventh/seventeenth century, thought to originate from the town of Shirbin, then a significant rural center in the eastern part of Delta. Little is known about him--including his social standing and profession--beyond Brains Confounded and two other extant texts: The Pearls (Al-La'ali' wa-l-durar) and The Casting Aside of the Clods for the Unstringing of the Pearls (Tarh al-madar li-hall al-la'ali' wa-l-durar).