Literatures, "ELITE” and "FOLK" : junctions and disjunctions

Abstract EN

Arabs long accepted that only texts in their classical language qualified as literary.

Common folk created songs and tales in regional vernaculars, but these were seldom recorded.

Folk literature first commanded attention in Andalusia.

Texts born in Arab heartlands first surfaced there, some surviving only in European translations.

Folk verse, forms led to new stanzaic poetry genres in both local and classical idioms.

And the Andalusian example was soon followed elsewhere.

The use of the vernacular by literate poets grew but remained marginal.

Now a Westernized elite occasionally resorts to folk material for modernistic purposes.

It also studies folk literature academically.

Nevertheless, the two levels remain complementary but distinct