Monday Majlis: The Hoopoe on the Pulpit: Narrative Structure and Imagined Performance in Ê¿Aá¹á¹Ärâ€™s Maná¹eq al-á¹ayr
2024-02-26 17:00 - 18:30 | Online
The Maná¹eq al-á¹ayr is often described as a spiritual journey in which the hoopoe leads a flock of birds through seven valleys towards the Simorgh. While the text does recount a spiritual journey, the quest actually makes up a very small percentage of the poem; the bulk of the work is devoted to the preparatory stories and homilies through which the hoopoe convinces the birds to set out and provides them with the knowledge they need to successfully complete it. In this sense, the poem is even more concerned with speech as an inducement to spiritual progress than it is with spiritual progress itself. In this talk, Austin Oâ€™Malley will examine the Maná¹eq al-á¹ayr as an exploration of speechâ€™s perlocutionary efficacy and its limits, while showing how the frame- tale structure allows Ê¿Aá¹á¹Är to celebrate the power of his own homiletic discourse. http://www.exeter.ac.uk/events/details/?event=13633
