Exploring Arab Folk Literature

Table of contents

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• Exploring Arab Folk Literature i
• Title Page iii
• Contents v
• Acknowledgements vii
• Foreword xi
• Introduction xvii
• The Transcription of Both Classical and Colloquial Arabic xx
• Part 1- Fact Finding 1
• 1- Arabic Literatures, ‘Elite’ and ‘Folk’–Junctions and Disjunctions 3
• 2- The Egyptian MawwāL- Its Ancestry, Its Development, and Its Present Forms 19
• 3- The Nahḍa’s First Stirrings of Interest in Alf Layla 42
• 4- The Career of MuṣṪfā >ibrāHīm <ajāJ- A Giant of Egyptian Popular Literature 51
• Part 2- Single or Related Items 59
• 5- The Prophet’s Shirt- Three Versions of an Egyptian Narrative Ballad 61
• 6- An Uncommon Use of Nonsense Verse in Colloquial Arabic 89
• 7- An Early Example of Narrative Verse in Colloquial Arabic 96

• Exploring Arab Folk Literature i
• Title Page iii
• Contents v
• Acknowledgements vii
• Foreword xi
• Introduction xvii
• The Transcription of Both Classical and Colloquial Arabic xx
• Part 1- Fact Finding 1
• 1- Arabic Literatures, ‘Elite’ and ‘Folk’–Junctions and Disjunctions 3
• 2- The Egyptian MawwāL- Its Ancestry, Its Development, and Its Present Forms 19
• 3- The Nahḍa’s First Stirrings of Interest in Alf Layla 42
• 4- The Career of MuṣṪfā >ibrāHīm <ajāJ- A Giant of Egyptian Popular Literature 51
• Part 2- Single or Related Items 59
• 5- The Prophet’s Shirt- Three Versions of an Egyptian Narrative Ballad 61
• 6- An Uncommon Use of Nonsense Verse in Colloquial Arabic 89
• 7- An Early Example of Narrative Verse in Colloquial Arabic 96
• 8- An Incomplete Egyptian Ballad on the 1956 War 102
• 9- An Honour Crime with a Diference 112
• 10- Pulp Stories in the Repertoire of Egyptian Folk Singers 119
• 11- Karam Il-Yatīm- A Translation of an Egyptian Folk Ballad 130
• 12- Of Loose Verse and Masculine Beauty 140
• 13- A Zajal on the Mi〈RāJ Attributed to Al-XubāRī 147
• Part 3- Cultural and Social Implications 159
• 14- Two Perspectives on the ‘Other’ in Arabic Literature 161
• 15- Maltese- Arabic Roots and Sundry Grafts 178
• 16- Social Values Reflected in Egyptian Popular Ballads 191
• 17- Folk Themes in the Works of Najīb Surūr 203
• 18- Elite Treatment of Honour Crimes in Modern Egypt 214