The Shipwrecked Sailor in Arabic and Western Literature: Ibn Tufayl and His Influence on European Writers Contributor(s): Baroud, Mahmoud (Author) |
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ISBN: 1848855524 ISBN-13: 9781848855526 Publisher: I. B. Tauris & Company OUR PRICE: $173.25 Product Type: Hardcover Published: October 2012 |
Additional Information |
BISAC Categories: - Literary Criticism | Middle Eastern - Literary Criticism | European - General |
Series: Library of Modern Middle East Studies |
Physical Information: 1.2" H x 5.5" W x 8.6" (1.15 lbs) 296 pages |
Themes: - Cultural Region - Middle East |
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
Publisher Description: From the ancient Egyptian 'Tale of a Shipwrecked Sailor' through to Sinbad and Robinson Crusoe, the stranded castaway living and philosophising alone on a strange, desert island is a theme which has captured the imaginations of writers spanning cultures and millennia. Most familiar to Western literary historians is Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, which inspired generations of writers from Jonathan Wyss and William Golding to Michel Tournier and J.M. Coetzee. However, little attention has been paid to Defoe's antecedents, such as the remarkable Hayy Bin Yaqzan by twelfth-century Arab physician and philosopher, Muhammad Ibn Tufayl. Mahmoud Baroud here conducts a detailed comparative textual analysis of Hayy Bin Yaqzan and Robinson Crusoe, and concludes that Daniel Defoe was likely to have been deeply influenced by Ibn Tufayl's Arabic text. His findings are compelling, pointing to clear similarities in themes, ideas, events and structure, such as long-term isolation on an island, the absence of female characters and an encounter with a stranger who becomes a spiritual disciple. |