The Qur’an and the Aesthetics of Premodern Arabic Prose [electronic resource] /
bin Tyeer, Sarah R.author.
This book approaches the Qur’an as a primary source for delineating the definition of ugliness, and by extension beauty, and in turn establishing meaningful tools and terms for literary criticism within the discipline of classical Arabic literature (adab). Focusing on the aesthetic dimension of the Qur’an, this methodology opens up new horizons for reading adab by reading the tradition from within the tradition and thereby examining issues of “decontextualisation” and the “untranslatable.” This approach, in turn, invites Comparatists, as well as Arabists, to consider other means and perspectives for approaching adab besides the Bakhtinian carnival. Applying this critical strategy to literary works as diverse as One Thousand and One Nights and The Epistle of Forgiveness, Sarah R. bin Tyeer aims to prove two major points: how Bakhtin’s aesthetics is anachronistic and therefore theoretically inappropriate when applied to certain literary works and how ultimately this literary methodology is sometimes used as a proxy for ungrounded and, sometimes, unfair arguments by other scholars. .
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Foreword by Angelika Neuwirth -- Introduction -- Part I The Hermeneutics of the Qurʾan for the Arts: Key Terms -- Chapter One Ḥusn: The Route to a Conceptual Query -- Chapter Two Qubḥ and the Way to Hell -- Chapter Three Hell and the Aesthetics of qubḥ -- Chapter Four Language: Beautiful Speech/Ugly Speech -- Part II Popular Literature: Thousand and One Nights -- Chapter 5 The Aesthetics of Reason. - Chapter 6 Of Misplacement of Things, People and Decorum -- Chapter 7 The Transgression of Reason -- Part III Canonical Literature -- Chapter 8 Beautifying the Ugly and Uglifying the Beautiful -- Chapter 9 The Littérateurs of Hell and Heaven -- Coda: The Interpretation and Misinterpretation of adab in Modern Scholarship. .
This book approaches the Qur’an as a primary source for delineating the definition of ugliness, and by extension beauty, and in turn establishing meaningful tools and terms for literary criticism within the discipline of classical Arabic literature (adab). Focusing on the aesthetic dimension of the Qur’an, this methodology opens up new horizons for reading adab by reading the tradition from within the tradition and thereby examining issues of “decontextualisation” and the “untranslatable.” This approach, in turn, invites Comparatists, as well as Arabists, to consider other means and perspectives for approaching adab besides the Bakhtinian carnival. Applying this critical strategy to literary works as diverse as One Thousand and One Nights and The Epistle of Forgiveness, Sarah R. bin Tyeer aims to prove two major points: how Bakhtin’s aesthetics is anachronistic and therefore theoretically inappropriate when applied to certain literary works and how ultimately this literary methodology is sometimes used as a proxy for ungrounded and, sometimes, unfair arguments by other scholars. .
Literature   .
Middle Eastern literature.
Literature-History and criticism.
Postcolonial/World Literature.
Middle Eastern Literature.
Literary History.