{"product_id":"brains-confounded-by-the-ode-of-ab-shdf-expounded-volume-one","title":"Brains Confounded by the Ode of Abū Shādūf Expounded","description":"\u003cp\u003eWitty, bawdy, and vicious, Yūsuf al-Shirbīnī’s \u003ci\u003eBrains Confounded\u003c\/i\u003e pits the “coarse” rural masses against the “refined” urban population. In Volume One, al-Shirbīnī describes the three rural “types”—peasant cultivator, village man-of-religion, and rural dervish—offering anecdotes testifying to the ignorance, dirtiness, and criminality of each. In Volume Two, he presents a hilarious parody of the verse-and-commentary genre so beloved by scholars of his day, with a 47-line poem supposedly written by a peasant named Abū Shādūf, who charts the rise and fall of his fortunes. Wielding the scholarly tools of elite literature, al-Shirbīnī responds to the poem with derision and ridicule, dotting his satire with digressions into love, food, and flatulence. \u003cbr\u003e\nVolume Two of \u003ci\u003eBrains Confounded\u003c\/i\u003e is followed by \u003ci\u003eRisible Rhymes\u003c\/i\u003e, a concise text that includes a comic disquisition on “rural” verse, mocking the pretensions of uneducated poets from Egypt’s countryside. \u003ci\u003eRisible Rhymes\u003c\/i\u003e also examines various kinds of puzzle poems, which were another popular genre of the day, and presents a debate between scholars over a line of verse by the fourth\/tenth-century poet al-Mutanabbī. Together, \u003ci\u003eBrains Confounded \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eRisible Rhymes\u003c\/i\u003e offer intriguing insight into the intellectual concerns of Ottoman Egypt, showcasing the intense preoccupation with wordplay, grammar, and stylistics and shedding light on the literature of the era.\u003cbr\u003e\nAn English-only edition.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"New York University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54179649093976,"sku":null,"price":40.99,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0278\/1295\/4195\/files\/9781479882342__676f77b1cbfb6.jpg?v=1741159587","url":"https:\/\/agendabookshop.com\/products\/brains-confounded-by-the-ode-of-ab-shdf-expounded-volume-one","provider":"Agenda Bookshop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}