ENGLISH

The story of Joseph : a fourteenth-century Turkish morality play

By Hickman , Bill; (Son of Jacob) Joseph

Book information

Publisher
Syracuse University Press
Year
2014
ISBN
9780815633570, 0815633572, 9780815652700, 0815652704
Language
english
Format
PDF
Filesize
2 MB (1975157 bytes)
Series
Middle East literature in translation
Edition
First edition
Pages
172\172
Topic
Literature
Time added
2019-12-08 17:01:14
-- (Son of Jacob) -- Drama;Electronic books;ElectrJoseph

Description

At the heart of this volume is the translation of a fourteenth-century Turkish version of the Joseph story, better known to Western readers from the version in Genesis, first book of the Hebrew Bible. Hickman provides us with a new lens: we see the drama of the Old Testament prophet Joseph, son of Jacob, through Muslim eyes. The poem’s author, Sheyyad Hamza, lived in Anatolia during the early days of the Ottoman Empire. Hamza’s composition is rooted in the recondite and little-studied tradition of oral performance—a unique corner of Turkish verbal arts, situated between minstrelsy and the "divan" tradition—combining the roles of preacher and storyteller. A cultural document as well as a literary text that reflects the prevailing values of the time, Hamza’s play reveals a picture of Ottoman sensibility, both aesthetic and religious, at the level of popular culture in premodern Turkey. To supplement and contextualize the story, Hickman includes an introduction, a historical-literary afterword, and notes to the translation, all ably assisting an unfamiliar reader’s entry into this world. A+

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