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Papers by Nino Dolidze

Maqāma (pl. maqāmāt), as a literary genre, was created in the tenth century.

Comparative analysis of al-Hamadānī’s Maqāmāt and The Life of Lazarillo de Tormes and His Fortune... more Comparative analysis of al-Hamadānī’s Maqāmāt and The Life of Lazarillo de Tormes and His Fortunes and Adversities by anonymous author

The Maqāma Form in the Arabic Drama Writing Nino Dolidze (PhD 2005) Tbilisi State University, G... more The Maqāma Form in the Arabic Drama Writing

Nino Dolidze (PhD 2005)
Tbilisi State University, Georgia

Abstract

Maqāma is one of the main genres of the Arabic prose. It was created in the tenth century. C. Brockelman and Ch. Pellat consider that it would be possible to write wonderful plays by means of maqāmāt.

Before the middle of the nineteenth century, there did not exist any theatrical tradition in the Arabic literature, no plays were written. The only case of the usage of the maqāma-form in the theatre is the shadow-plays by Ibn Dāniyāl (+1310). It is possible, that somebody somewhere improvised maqāmāt on the stage, if we take into account that after al-®arīrī’s period maqāma was very popular among public, but there is no trace of it. Because of this simple reason, maqāma would not be turned into a play, until the Arabs themselves did not have a desire to create their own national drama writing. To this period belongs a play staged by the Moroccan al-Tayb al-Siddīqī according to al-Hamadhānī’s maqāmāt. The play has met a great success. In the twentieth century after making the context Arabic more attention was paid to the traditionality of the form.

By the end of the twentieth century appeared a modern play Gypsy maqāma. The author Farūq Awhān used the maqāma-form. The main theme of Gypsy maqāma is emigration. In Awhān’s play al-Hakawātī elements are also visible, particularly, four protagonists, two roles played by one person, actions encroached in each other. In Awhān’s opinion, maqāma leaves the boundaries of a short story. A rāwī, characters, direct animation of life events __ it seems as if it is written according to the stage demands. Awhān’s usage of the maqāma literary form was made by traditional restoration motif: maqāma as one of the most important components of Arabic culture should not be lost and forgotten.

Books by Nino Dolidze

Maqāma (pl. maqāmāt), as a literary genre, was created in the tenth century. It is regarded as on... more Maqāma (pl. maqāmāt), as a literary genre, was created in the tenth century. It is regarded as one of the main genres of the Arabic literature. Any review of Arabic literature would reveal that maqāma has constantly been present in it. It was a well-known artistic form in the Middle Ages extending its influence from India to Spain. From Arabic literature, the maqāma also penetrated into Hebrew, Syrian and Persian culture. The classical maqāma is a short narrative about a fictional hero. Usually the author creates a cycle made of tens of maqāmāt. In each of the maqāmāt the narrator encounters the protagonist who travels from town to town and recounts his story to us. The protagonist of the classical maqāmāt is an educated person with some traits of a rogue. He depends on his eloquence and lying to others for his livelihood, and the narrator often reproaches the protagonist for his behavior. In terms of content, maqāmāt are completely unrelated stories amalgamated into a cycle by these two main characters. At the beginning of each maqāma the narrator meets the protagonist by chance, and at the end leaves him. The narrator tells the reader what he has seen with his own eyes; he tells us about the protagonist's eloquent speech and roguish behavior. In terms of form, maqāma is characterized by almost continuous saj' (rhymed prose). In certain places, saj' includes fragments of poems, while the text of maqāmāt includes preaching, pieces of advice, declamations, dialogue, discussions on various issues, anecdotes, epistles and different kinds of poetic samples. One of the most prominent features of maqāmat is fictitious isnād (chain of transmitters on whose authority the story is related) usually expressed in the form of " such and such (the name of the narrator) related to us… ". This formula can also be repeated in the middle of the story. The best representatives of classical maqāmāt are al-Hamadhānī (969 Hamedan-1008 Herat) who is regarded the founder of the genre and al-®arīrī (1054-1122) who developed the genre to its pinnacle. Al-Hamadhānī with his phenomenal talent of improvisation quickly became famous in the leading circles. Most of his works (epistles, poems) were collected after his death. All of the features present in his maqāmāt-the rhymed prose, isnād, quotations from Arabic poetry and Koran, the character of wandering narrator, almost all the genres of adab (the Arabic Canonic Literature-anecdotes, epistles, fables, legends, heroic stories, etc.) show that the work of al-Hamadhānī was created in accordance with the aesthetics of analogy which was quite dominant in the Middle Ages. His maqāmāt borrowed the form, literary themes and motifs from the well-developed adab of that period and put all of them in an entirely new literary model.

Conference Presentations by Nino Dolidze

by CHIARA FONTANA, Sarah R bin Tyeer, Lara Harb, Nathaniel A Miller, Johannes Stephan, Gretchen Head, Matthew L Keegan, Nino Dolidze, Haifa Saud Alfaisal, Emad Abdul Latif د. عماد عبد اللطيف, and Cristina Dozio