Orient
Online ISSN : 1884-1392
Print ISSN : 0473-3851
ISSN-L : 0473-3851
ARTICLES
Maqāma as a Countroom Play
Disguised Hero, Duped Judge
Keiji OKAZAKI
著者情報
ジャーナル フリー

2007 年 42 巻 p. 125-149

詳細
抄録

In this paper, theatricality of Maqāmāt of al-Ḥarīrī is investigated. For a long time, Arabic culture had unreasonably been considered to be devoid of drama in the European sense clarified by Badawi, namely, the imitation on a stage by human actors of a story or situation through action and dialogue in prose or verse. But Moreh definitely refuted the claim, providing ample evidence o f live theatre. The validity o f another presumption concerning Arabic culture, however, remains to be verified. Maqāmāt of ai-Hamadhānī and al-Ḥarīrī have been referred to as something close to drama by prestigious scholars such as Th. Chenery, R. A. Nicholson, H.A.R. Gibb, Ḍayf, and Shak‘a. None of them make any definition of the term, drama, therefore their opinions are no more than impressionistic criticism, not academic one. What is required is to define the key terms, drama, play, theatre. They are blanket terms with a double meaning signifying totally different but closely combined elements of theatre: written text on a page and performance on a stage. Drama is mainly used in this paper to designate a text written by a playwright. In view of the fact that the Maqāmāt is a written text, the first step to examine its theatricality is to analyze it utilizing literary theories like Aristotle’s. We are to consider the Maqāmāt something similar to a closet drama, or Lesedrama: a play intended to be read but not acted. The maqāmas of al-Ḥarīrī containing judicial scene wilt be interpreted in terms o f form, structure, characterization and other kinds o f art o f composition related to dramatic elements: deixis and kinesics. Our working hypothesis will be verified by the dramatic theory of Aristotle's Poetics.

著者関連情報
© 2007 The Society for Near Eastern Studies in Japan
前の記事 次の記事
feedback
Top