Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. Contents v
3. Acknowledgements vii
4. Foreword xi
5. Introduction xvii
6. The Transcription of Both Classical and Colloquial Arabic xx
7. PART 1 Fact Finding
8. 1 Arabic Literatures, ‘Elite’ and ‘Folk’ – Junctions and Disjunctions 3
9. 2 The Egyptian Mawwāl: Its Ancestry, its Development, and its Present Forms 19
10. 3 The Nahḍa’s First Stirrings of Interest in Alf Layla 42
11. 4 The Career of Muṣṭafā > Ibrāhīm < Ajāj: A Giant of Egyptian Popular Literature 51
12. PART 2 Single or Related Items
13. 5 The Prophet’s Shirt: Three Versions of an Egyptian Narrative Ballad 61
14. 6 An Uncommon Use of Nonsense Verse in Colloquial Arabic 89
15. 7 An Early Example of Narrative Verse in Colloquial Arabic 96
16. 8 An Incomplete Egyptian Ballad on the 1956 War 102
17. 9 An Honour Crime with a Difference 112
18. 10 Pulp Stories in the Repertoire of Egyptian Folk Singers 119
19. 11 Karam il-Yatīm: A Translation of an Egyptian Folk Ballad 130
20. 12 Of Loose Verse and Masculine Beauty 140
21. 13 A Zajal on the Mi<rāj Attributed to Al-Xubārī 147
22. PART 3 Cultural and Social Implications
23. 14 Two Perspectives on the ‘Other’ in Arabic Literature 161
24. 15 Maltese: Arabic Roots and Sundry Grafts 178
25. 16 Social Values Reflected in Egyptian Popular Ballads 191
26. 17 Folk Themes in the Works of Najīb Surūr 203
27. 18 Elite Treatment of Honour Crimes in Modern Egypt 214