Pierre Cachia
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748640867
- eISBN:
- 9780748653300
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748640867.003.0010
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Middle Eastern Studies
This chapter discusses pulp stories in the repertoire of Egyptian folk singers. In the hands of a master, pulp stories may incorporate characteristic folk themes. The chapter examines the tazhīr or ...
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This chapter discusses pulp stories in the repertoire of Egyptian folk singers. In the hands of a master, pulp stories may incorporate characteristic folk themes. The chapter examines the tazhīr or the ‘opening of the flower’, which sets apart pulp stories from other forms of performances. These pulp stories have rhymes that are inflated into multiple and usually polysyllabic paronomasias achieved by extensive distortion of the normal pronunciation of words. This involves omitting, adding, or altering vowels, semi-consonants, glottal stops, retaining only the consonants in their correct order, so that the result may be called a ‘consonantal’ pun. In addition, pulp stories do not twang the deepest nerves in the consciousness of the common folk.Less
This chapter discusses pulp stories in the repertoire of Egyptian folk singers. In the hands of a master, pulp stories may incorporate characteristic folk themes. The chapter examines the tazhīr or the ‘opening of the flower’, which sets apart pulp stories from other forms of performances. These pulp stories have rhymes that are inflated into multiple and usually polysyllabic paronomasias achieved by extensive distortion of the normal pronunciation of words. This involves omitting, adding, or altering vowels, semi-consonants, glottal stops, retaining only the consonants in their correct order, so that the result may be called a ‘consonantal’ pun. In addition, pulp stories do not twang the deepest nerves in the consciousness of the common folk.