The Arab Rabelais: Ibn Dāniyāl's Carnivalesque Satire and Wit
In medieval Cairo the oculist and litterateur Ibn Dāniyāl satirized the Mamluk Sultan Baybars's campaign against vice in three shadow plays drawing on a mock-heroic rhetoric in the irreverent burlesque tradition. This article provides an in-depth analysis of the playwright's carnivalesque...
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
[2017]
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| In: |
Journal of Semitic studies
Year: 2017, Volume: 62, Issue: 2, Pages: 413-445 |
| IxTheo Classification: | AG Religious life; material religion KBL Near East and North Africa TH Late Middle Ages |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (Verlag) Volltext (doi) |
| Summary: | In medieval Cairo the oculist and litterateur Ibn Dāniyāl satirized the Mamluk Sultan Baybars's campaign against vice in three shadow plays drawing on a mock-heroic rhetoric in the irreverent burlesque tradition. This article provides an in-depth analysis of the playwright's carnivalesque and satirical trilogy with particular reference to The Shadow Spirit and The Amazing Preacher and the Stranger in the light of the Russian critic and philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin's theory of carnival. The carnivalesque is a burlesque dramatic mode that aims to furtively defy and sabotage the social hierarchy and resist a government's political system through satire and mocking rhetoric. Bakhtin associates the mode with the medieval carnivals and feasts of fools and sub-deacons celebrated by the clergy in Europe. Burlesque drama was intended to cause hilarious laughter by caricaturing the government's ludicrous subjugation of its subjects in bawdy comedies. Ibn Dāniyāl's trilogy in general and these two plays in particular can be studied in the context of popular culture and the carnivalesque tradition which is germane to Bakhtin's theory of carnival. |
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| ISSN: | 1477-8556 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Journal of Semitic studies
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1093/jss/fgx012 |