Epic Splitting: An Arab Folk Gloss on the Meaning of the Hero Pattern

Abstract

"Epic narrative typically spells out departures and arrivals very clearly (see Bowra 1952:179 ff). The Arabic migration epic Sīrat Banī Hilāl, in its many different cultural transformations and retellings, has a structure based on geographic displacements. Narrators from Egypt to Tunisia and the Lake Chad area all construct their versions of the story cyclically around a basic morphology of: LACK -- DEPARTURE -- CONTRACT -- VIOLATION -- RESOLUTION (battle or trickery/victory or defeat) -- LACK LIQUIDATED or NEW LACK (which engenders a new geographic displacement, be it a return or a new departure) (see Connelly 1973, 1986; Ayoub 1982b)."--Opening paragraph.