• Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
The Story of Joseph: A Fourteenth-Century Turkish Morality Play by Sheyyad Hamza

The Story of Joseph: A Fourteenth-Century Turkish Morality Play by Sheyyad Hamza

Hardcover

Series: Middle East Literature in Translation

Turkey & Ottoman Empire History

ISBN10: 0815633572
ISBN13: 9780815633570
Publisher: Syracuse Univ Pr
Published: May 8 2014
Pages: 168
Weight: 0.68
Height: 0.68 Width: 5.70 Depth: 8.49
Language: English
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.

Also in

Turkey & Ottoman Empire History