{"product_id":"before-world-literature-the-trickster-tales-of-al-arr-in-an-age-of-commentary-9781512828870","title":"Before World Literature: The Trickster Tales of Al-\u0026#7716;ar\u0026#299;r\u0026#299; In an Age of Commentary","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAn account of Arabic literary history through the lens of the reception of the \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cem\u003eMaqāmāt \u003c\/em\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eof al-Ḥarīrī, a twelfth-century collection of fifty trickster stories\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eBefore World Literature \u003c\/em\u003eoffers an account of Arabic literary history through the lens of the reception of one of the most widely read Arabic texts of the postclassical period: the \u003cem\u003eMaqāmāt \u003c\/em\u003eof al-Ḥarīrī, a twelfth-century collection of fifty trickster stories written in an elaborate and highly allusive form of prose. Innumerable Muslim scholars taught the text to new generations of students and wrote extensive commentaries on it. In the nineteenth century, however, the \u003cem\u003eMaqāmāt \u003c\/em\u003efell rapidly out of favor, its elaborate style and its commentary tradition suddenly seen as symptoms of cultural decay.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMatthew L. Keegan shows how the emergence of world literature as a literary critical paradigm led to a wholesale reformulation of literary tastes that sidelined elaborately referential texts like the\u003cem\u003e Maqāmāt\u003c\/em\u003e. Nineteenth-century European Orientalists and Arab reformist thinkers derided the\u003cem\u003e Maqāmāt\u003c\/em\u003e for being decadent and derivative, while assailing the entire postclassical Arabic intellectual tradition. The canon of Arabic poetry and prose was reshaped accordingly, favoring classical authors whose work was perceived to be more in line with modern, European literary aesthetics.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eKeegan looks to the flourishing commentary culture of the postclassical period to uncover the theories of reading and interpretation that informed engagement with Islamic texts in their own time. Tracing the social, material, and intellectual practices embedded in the commentaries on the \u003cem\u003e Maqāmāt\u003c\/em\u003e, he explores how generations of Muslims read and interpreted al-Ḥarīrī's trickster stories, for edification and entertainment. Restoring the \u003cem\u003eMaqāmāt \u003c\/em\u003eto its place as the pinnacle of Arabic style and as an essential text of Islamic education for centuries, \u003cem\u003eBefore World Literature \u003c\/em\u003eoffers a model of how to read texts like the \u003cem\u003eMaqāmāt \u003c\/em\u003eon their own terms.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Matthew L. Keegan\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Hardcover\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e University of Pennsylvania Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 03\/24\/2026\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 304\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 1.28lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.81d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781512828870","brand":"University of Pennsylvania Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45398236594313,"sku":"9781512828870","price":49.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0636\/9240\/6921\/files\/img_fe80f319-8323-4598-b056-f43b0333739b.jpg?v=1773728380","url":"https:\/\/sonsanddaughtersbooks.com\/products\/before-world-literature-the-trickster-tales-of-al-arr-in-an-age-of-commentary-9781512828870","provider":"Sons and Daughters Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}