Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Dedication
- Foreword by Professor Clive Holes
- Introduction
- The Transcription of Both Classical and Colloquial Arabic
- Part 1 Fact Finding
- Part 2 Single or Related Items
- 5 The Prophet‘s Shirt: Three Versions of an Egyptian Narrative Ballad Journal of Semitic Studies, 26, 1 (1981)
- 6 An Uncommon Use of Nonsense Verse in Colloquial Arabic Journal of Arabic Literature, 14 (1983)
- 7 An Early Example of Narrative Verse in Colloquial Arabic Journal of Arabic Literature, 21, 2 (September 1990)
- 8 An Incomplete Egyptian Ballad on the 1956 War Tradition and Modernity in Arabic Language and Literature, ed. J. R. Smart (Richmond, 1996)
- 9 An Honour Crime with a Difference first published as ‘Three Versions of an Egyptian Narrative Ballad’, Proceedings of First International Conference on Middle Eastern Popular Culture, Magdalen College, Oxford (17–21 September 2000)
- 10 Pulp Stories in the Repertoire of Egyptian Folk Singers British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 33, 2 (November 2006)
- 11 Karam il-Yatīm: A Translation of an Egyptian Folk Ballad Journal of Arabic Literature, 23, 2 (July 1992)
- 12 Of Loose Verse and Masculine Beauty Quaderni di Studi Arabi, Nuova serie, 2 (2007)
- 13 A Zajal on the Mi
Oriente Moderno, 89, 2 (2009) - Part 3 Cultural and Social Implications
8 - An Incomplete Egyptian Ballad on the 1956 War Tradition and Modernity in Arabic Language and Literature, ed. J. R. Smart (Richmond, 1996)
from Part 2 - Single or Related Items
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2015
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Dedication
- Foreword by Professor Clive Holes
- Introduction
- The Transcription of Both Classical and Colloquial Arabic
- Part 1 Fact Finding
- Part 2 Single or Related Items
- 5 The Prophet‘s Shirt: Three Versions of an Egyptian Narrative Ballad Journal of Semitic Studies, 26, 1 (1981)
- 6 An Uncommon Use of Nonsense Verse in Colloquial Arabic Journal of Arabic Literature, 14 (1983)
- 7 An Early Example of Narrative Verse in Colloquial Arabic Journal of Arabic Literature, 21, 2 (September 1990)
- 8 An Incomplete Egyptian Ballad on the 1956 War Tradition and Modernity in Arabic Language and Literature, ed. J. R. Smart (Richmond, 1996)
- 9 An Honour Crime with a Difference first published as ‘Three Versions of an Egyptian Narrative Ballad’, Proceedings of First International Conference on Middle Eastern Popular Culture, Magdalen College, Oxford (17–21 September 2000)
- 10 Pulp Stories in the Repertoire of Egyptian Folk Singers British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 33, 2 (November 2006)
- 11 Karam il-Yatīm: A Translation of an Egyptian Folk Ballad Journal of Arabic Literature, 23, 2 (July 1992)
- 12 Of Loose Verse and Masculine Beauty Quaderni di Studi Arabi, Nuova serie, 2 (2007)
- 13 A Zajal on the MiOriente Moderno, 89, 2 (2009)
- Part 3 Cultural and Social Implications
Summary
In the course of the field work which eventually led to the publication of my Ballads, I made it a practice to ask as few leading questions as possible in order to let my informants reveal their own priorities. What emerged was that among the ballad-mongers who did not specialise in the epic cycle of the Hilālīs, by far the most popular themes were accounts of ‘honour crimes’ in which fierce retribution is visited upon women who offend against the strict (if unequal) code of conduct still prevalent among the masses. Closely allied were other feats of bravery and violence, mainly motivated by revenge. Following at some distance were ballads of a religious character, either embroidering a Qur>anic story or recounting the deeds of a holy man.
Not once was I volunteered a song celebrating some national event and reflecting the kind of loyalty to the state that is very much in honour among the educated modernists – what Albert Hourani has defined as ‘territorial nationalism’ to distinguish it from pan-Arabism or pan-Islamism.
One of my informants was Muḥammad Ramaḍān Sayyid Aḥmad, known as Abū Ðrā<, that is, ‘the One-Armed’. He was of peasant stock. His first home had been with his mother and stepfather, but when he was about five years old his father – whom he had not known before – claimed him and took him to Uṭūr in the district of Kafr iš-Šēx near Ṭanṭā in the Delta.
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- Information
- Exploring Arab Folk Literature , pp. 102 - 111Publisher: Edinburgh University PressPrint publication year: 2011