Prophets, Gods and Kings in Sīrat Sayf Ibn Dhī Yazan: An Intertextual Reading of an Egyptian Popular Epic: 38 (Brill Studies in Middle Eastern Literatures) - Hardcover

Blatherwick, Helen

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 9004314792 ISBN 13: 9789004314795

Publisher: Brill, 2016

Synopsis

This book is a literary, intertextual study of an Egyptian popular epic. In this innovative study, Helen Blatherwick investigates how various sources, including Islamic qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ ('tales of the prophets'), Pharaonic, Graeco-Roman and Coptic Egyptian myths and narratives, and recensions of the Alexander Romance function as intertexts within Sīrat Sayf. Blatherwick argues that these intertexts are deployed as narrative devices which are readily recognisable to the story's audience, and that they are significant carriers of meaning and theme. Crucially, these intertexts also interact within Sīrat Sayf to bring a conceptual continuity to its discussion of kingship and society that stretches from this late-medieval epic back to ancient Egyptian narratives.

About this title

Review:

"Arabic popular epic, sira shaʿbiya, is a relatively under-researched branch of Arabic literature, which makes the appearance of Helen Blatherwick's monograph on Sirat Sayf ibn Dhi Yazan especially noteworthy... here we have a book that is admirable for its lucid and consequent development of argument as well as for its stimulating new approach. A book highly recommended, and not only for sira scholars."
Remke Kruk in: BSOAS, 80:2, June 2017.

About the Author:

Helen Blatherwick, Ph.D. (2002), SOAS, University of London, is a Research Associate at the same university.

About this edition

• Publisher: Brill
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 9004314792
• ISBN 13: 9789004314795
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 346