Critial Review Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Critial Review - Essay Example It is accepted that his concentration on Alf Laylah in particular to expand his thesis and Arab Islamic culture in general is the main point of the exercise. 1. The narratives of Alf Laylah (The Arabian Nights) are literary representations of traditional folktales. They were also probably in told orally at the time the book was being written. Scribes and clerics wrote them, using insha which can be termed style (rhetorical, bombastic, colored by the male viewpoint of the clerics and their religious nature in the Arab Moslem world at the time. 2. Folklore is learned by those who know it and share it, it encompasses all aspects of the learning process of motivation, stimuli, response, retention, recall etc. So it needs to be looked at in terms of learning rather than explained via psychological interpretations. or society which own it, and the way in which they present it. El-Shamy is concerned that the folk traditions of Arab Islamic cultures have either been ignored or misinterpreted thus far in research, interpretation and indexing and so his intention is to put this right, by the creation of a new Motif Index. He cites his goal as follows: Typology and Classification: The crux of these can be explained simply. The scholars seeking to examine cultures and methods of identification of various aspects of folklore tradition set up ways to classify their findings. Two of these were tale-type and motif. The history of how these were devised and implemented for use then follows, with a reference to the Finnish folk epic Kalevala and its indexing. We learn that Antti Aarne, with a Historical-Georgraphical method, used the tale-type as a research tool, (circa 1910) and that Stith Thompson adapted this and expanded it in 1928 and 1961. The way it works is then explained at length, with much numbering and listing, and also with much digression into who else has had a try