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Through the close reading a number of fictional and non
-fictional texts, this course will look at fundamental
features and aspects of literature and literary culture
through a number of genres in Pre-Modern
Islamic literature, such as literary vs. real space and
time, individual vs. communal aspects of literature,
orality vs. written culture, fiction vs. history,
didacticism and entertainment, narrative
credibility, frame story, narrator and levels of
fictionality, the “Other”, intertextuality, author-, work
-, and audience-focused approaches to interpretation,
translation, relationship between form and content,
high vs. popular culture. Aside from trying to
contextualize these fundamental works in their own place
and time, we will consider them as part of
world literature, paying attention to their reception in
both the West and the East.
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