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
6 - An Uncommon Use of Nonsense Verse in Colloquial Arabic Journal of Arabic Literature, 14 (1983)
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 1893, M. Urbain Bouriant, then Director of the French Archaeological Mission in Cairo, published a volume entitled Chansons Populaires Arabes en dialecte du Caire d'après les manuscrits d'un chanteur des rues. The book consists of 160 pages of carefully edited and very well printed texts, with no comment or study of any kind. A note from the publisher, however, refers to the ‘stroke of good fortune’ that brought the manuscripts into M. Bouriant's hands and announces that the selection presented then was only a forerunner of a translation and study to appear later. Sadly, M. Bouriant was struck down by ill-health in 1895, and as far as I have been able to ascertain never fulfilled his intention of following up on a very promising beginning.
More recently, Muḥammad Qandīl al-Baqlī has published a volume which, though he makes reference in it to a ‘booklet’ by Bouriant, he claims to be the result of painstaking independent research and a careful confrontation of texts. The truth is, however, that al-Baqlī has drawn solely on Bouriant's material, which he reproduces almost in its entirety, even to incorporating the Frenchman's conjectural emendations. And without mentioning that this material came from the hands of a street singer (indeed, he speaks vaguely of sources accessible only to the wellinformed), he builds round it what he claims is a survey of ‘dervish’ literature.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Exploring Arab Folk Literature , pp. 89 - 95Publisher: Edinburgh University PressPrint publication year: 2011