In this Book
- The Story of Joseph: A Fourteenth-Century Turkish Morality Play by Sheyyad Hamza
- Book
- 2014
- Published by: Syracuse University Press
- Series: Middle Eastern Literature in Translation
summary
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.
Table of Contents
Download Full Book
- Acknowledgments
- pp. ix-xii
- Note on Dating, Spelling,and Reference Works
- pp. xiii-xiv
- Introduction
- pp. 1-32
- Translation of the Poem
- pp. 33-122
- Bibliography
- pp. 143-148
Additional Information
ISBN
9780815652700
Related ISBN(s)
9780815633570
MARC Record
OCLC
880707163
Pages
168
Launched on MUSE
2014-07-12
Language
English
Open Access
No