Abstract
Like all narratives of great magnitude, the tale of Sindbad embodies the fascinating power of narration, which often curbs the desire of the reader to go further beyond the captivating story. We know, for example, that The Ancient Mariner can be read for its own plot as well as for the implications underlying the mere fascination of the narrative itself. But while the covert meaning of The Ancient Mariner has been given due consideration by literary critics, that of Sindbad has been overlooked, and this may be explained in terms of the generic nature of the tale of Sindbad. It is only recently after the distinctions between genres have become less of boundaries than of signposts that Sindbad has been assessed as a work of literary value.
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Notes
1. The Old Sindbad
Raymond Williams, The Long Revolution (London: Chatto and Windus, 1961) p. 282.
J.C. Mardus, trans. Powys Mathers, The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night (London: Bibliophile Books, 1964) II, p. 178.
Ibid.
Mia Gerhardt, The Art of Story Telling: A Literary Study of the Thousand and One Nights (Leiden, E.J. Brill: 1963) p. 261.
2. The Modern Sindbad
Michael Aflaq, ‘The Death of Sindbad’, al-Tali’ah 8 (1936) pp. 422–27.
4. Towards a Modern Sensibility
For details see Bernard Bergonzi, ‘Fin de Siècle’ in The Turn of a Century (London, Macmillan: 1973) pp. 17–40.
Jabra Ibrahim Jabra, ‘Shaking the Dusty Heavy Door’ in The Eighth Voyage (Beirut, al-Maktabah al-Asriyyah: 1967) p. 33.
Ibid.
Quoted by C.B. Cox, Modern Poetry: Studies in Practical Criticism (London: Edward Arnold, 1974) p. 93.
John Press, A Map of Modern English Verse (Oxford, Oxford University Press: 1969) p. 202.
5. Sindbad the Porter
Claude Lévi-Strauss, Tristes Tropiques, trans. J. and D. Weightman (New York: Atheneurn, 1974) p. 62.
7. Sindbad on his Eighth Voyage
C.G. Jung ‘Psychology and Literature’ in Modern Man in Search of a Soul (New York: Harcourt, 1966) p. 153.
Michael Bernstein, The Tale of the Tribe: Ezra Pound and Modern Verse Epic (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980) p. 127.
9. Abdullah Samsa in Waqwaq Island
Franz Kafka, The Penal Colony, Stories and Short Pieces, trans. Willa and Edwin Muir (New York: Schocken Books, 1961) p.67.
Ibid, p. 116.
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© 1989 Mohammad Shaheen
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Shaheen, M. (1989). Sindbad: The Other Voyage. In: The Modern Arabic Short Story. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-07768-7_3
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