The Fall of the Barmakids in Historiography and Fiction: Recognition and Disclosure
This study traces a centuries-long development in, transformation of, and argues for a variegated rapport between a group of disparate texts, some historiographical, some fictitious. Classical historiographies recounting the Barmakid debacle (al-Ṭabarī through Ibn Khallikān), late medieval and pre-m...
| Published in: | Journal of Abbasid Studies |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Brill
2016
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| In: |
Journal of Abbasid Studies
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| Further subjects: | B
Anagnorisis
Arabian Nights
Barmakids
comedy
intertextuality
recognition
tragedy
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| Online Access: |
Volltext (Verlag) |
| Summary: | This study traces a centuries-long development in, transformation of, and argues for a variegated rapport between a group of disparate texts, some historiographical, some fictitious. Classical historiographies recounting the Barmakid debacle (al-Ṭabarī through Ibn Khallikān), late medieval and pre-modern popular accounts of the Barmakid tragedy, tales that accompany these accounts, and others in the Arabian Nights that mention Jaʿfar the Barmakid and related ones that do not, are all analyzed by appealing to Aristotle’s concept of anagnorisis (recognition or discovery). Anagnorisis makes narrative and historiography read like fiction and is a structuring device in these texts, a window into narrative hermeneutics, and specifically, the feature that indicates significantly that these various texts are of a piece, according to both conscious and subliminal design. Anagnorisis reverberates with calamitous recognition built into the Barmakid story — one which unveils hard and tragic truths, and just as importantly preserves malignant secrecy, a secrecy that the Arabian Nights unconsciously transforms into felicity. |
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| ISSN: | 2214-2371 |
| Contains: | In: Journal of Abbasid Studies
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1163/22142371-12340026 |