Storytelling and the emergence of a literary genre:

مرکز و کتابخانه مطالعات اسلامی به زبان های اروپایی

منو

" Storytelling and the emergence of a literary genre: "
M. M. Khoury T. LeGassick

Document Type	:	Latin Dissertation
Language of Document	:	English
Record Number	:	1113178
Doc. No	:	TLpq304106006
Main Entry	:	M. M. Khoury
	:	T. LeGassick
Title & Author	:	Storytelling and the emergence of a literary genre:\ M. M. KhouryT. LeGassick
College	:	University of Michigan
Date	:	1994
student score	:	1994
Degree	:	Ph.D.
Page No	:	222
Abstract	:	This study is a three part examination of the Arabic short story as written in the Occupied Territories and Israel. The first part examines the early Palestinian short story collections. The analysis in this part is based on the morphology of the folktale as set forth by the Russian folklorist Vladimir Propp, and proceeds in two phases. The first is a preliminary application of Propp's theory to the Palestinian version of the folktale al-Shatir Hasan. In this phase the applicability of Propp's approach to Arabic oral literature is examined. The second phase of the analysis is an application of Propp's method to the short story collections published during the first half of this century. This portion of the study also introduces the hypothesis that Palestinian writers during this period were under the influence, however unconsciously, of their oral literature and were actually functioning as storytellers. Arguably, writing for them may have been little more than an orthographic mechanism for transcribing their orally-based stories. The second part assesses the resemblance between the oral literature and the Palestinian short story in its later stages--during the second half of the 20th century--but with different foci. The concept of the writer-reader relationship is examined in order to explain the vestiges of orality within this body of literature. In this regard, the issue of how Palestinian writers understand the role of art in society and comprehend the writer-reader relationship is discussed. Specifically, an effort is made to assess the factors that nourish the tendency of writers to assume responsibility for their readers' awareness and adopt the pedagogical tone of the storyteller in their writings. This part of the study concludes by outlining a number of distinctive characteristics which relate the selected stories to oral literature. In part three the prevalent notion of including (recontextualizing) folktales within written Palestinian short stories is investigated. The apparent intentions of Palestinians who utilize recontextualization are questioned and the stylistic features resulting from the juxtaposition of the oral and written frames are examined. Throughout this portion of the study short stories which include folktales are contrasted with the stories discussed in previous chapters.
Subject	:	Folklore
	:	Language, literature and linguistics
	:	Literature
	:	Middle Eastern literature
	:	Palestinian
	:	Social sciences