Between History and Fictionality: The Telescoping Advice in Ibn Ẓafar’s Sulwān al-muṭāʿ and Its Reception

The first part of the article focuses on the opening and closing chapters of Sicilian born polymath Ibn Ẓafar’s (d. ca. 566 /1171) mirror for princes, Sulwān al-muṭāʿ, which are devoted to “trusting [God]” (tafwīḍ) and “self-denial” (zuhd) respectively, and analyzes the combination of historical narratives and animal fables contained therein. In the complex “telescoping” structure devised by Ibn Ẓafar, both types of narratives represent an essential tool for reflecting on political circumstances related to the role of a local ruler. From this perspective, the analysis targets the relationship between history and fictionality set by the author and the transition from one dimension to the other. The final part of the article considers the reception of the Sulwān al-muṭāʿ by Ayyubid and Mamluk authors and their different approaches to various types of narratives when quoting (more or less substantial) parts of Ibn Ẓafar’s work.

When the Beasts Lost Their Voice: Fables, Qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ and Dramatic Irony in The Case of the Animals versus Man of the Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ

The most famous piece of the collection of Rasāʾil written by the Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ is probably the animal fable included in Epistle 22, known in its English translation as “The Case of the Animals versus Man before the King of the Jinn.” The complexity and thematic richness of the work allows multiple readings and it has often been interpreted as a fable denouncing cruelty against animals. The abrupt ending of the work recognising the superiority of men, however, seems to contradict the ecological spirit that animates the debate. This article approaches this contradiction from a narratological point of view. Together with the genre of animal fables, especially the Kalīla wa-Dimna, the Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ rely heavily on the tradition of the qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ to recreate a setting that would have evoked in the educated audiences both the descriptions of the pre-Adamite era, where animals were free and had the ability to speak, and the consequences of the creation of Adam and his preordained fall. The recognition of these parallelisms and other proleptic clues creates a gap between the expectations of the characters and those of the readers, which can be interpreted as dramatic irony.

Anti-Stalinist Dreams of Freedom

The alternative South African Marxist tradition derived from Trotsky’s critique of Stalinism and centred in the NEUM from the 1940s to 1960s is the focus of analysis. The South African adaptations of Trotsky’s fusion of critique and utopia in political discourse that are examined include: the writings of I. B. Tabata, Ben Kies, Goolam Gool and Baruch Hirson; the NEUM’s Ten-Point Programme of 1943; and the political journalism in publications loosely affiliated to the NEUM and the New Era Fellowship like Torch, The Bulletin and Discussion. The literary culture associated with the NEUM is discussed both by tracing the influence of the ideas of Marx, Trotsky and Brecht on South Africa’s counter-public sphere, and by analysing the literary-cultural writings of Dora Taylor (her poems, short stories, novels and book reviews); A. C. Jordan’s literary criticism and animal fables; Ben Kies’s newspaper columns; Neville Alexander’s letters; Livingstone Mqotsi’s novel House of Bondage (1990); and the widespread use of literary quotations in political speeches by NEUM leaders, including Tabata, Kies, Leo Sihlali and Goolam Gool.

Birds and Beasts in the Zhuangzi, Fables Interpreted by Guo Xiang and Cheng Xuanying

Birds and beasts often appear in the Zhuangzi, in fables and parables meant to be read analogically as instructions for human thought and behavior. Whereas the analogical significance of some fables is obvious, in others it is obscure and in need of explication, and even the readily accessible can be made to yield more clarity thanks to commentaries. This paper explores contributions made by the commentaries of Guo Xiang (252–312) and Cheng Xuanying (ca. 620–670) to the understanding of such fables. Guo Xiang and Wang Bi 王弼 (226–249) are the two most important figures in the xuanxue 玄學 “arcane learning” or “Neo-Daoism” movement of early medieval China (third to sixth century C.E.), which combined elements of Confucianism with the thought of Daoist foundational texts, especially the Daode jing (Classic of the Dao and Virtue) and the Zhuangzi (Sayings of Master Zhuang). Focus of the movement was the promotion of the concept and practice of the sage-ruler as a catalyst for the regeneration of self and society, leading to the foundation of a worldly utopia. Guo’s is the earliest intact philosophical commentary to the Zhuangzi and one of the most widely read during premodern times. Cheng Xuanying composed the only subcommentary to Guo’s commentary. Its more explicit style is most helpful in deciphering Guo’s too often cryptic and elliptical statements. However, it also tends to shunt Guo’s statecraft reading of the Zhuangzi more in the direction of explicating philosophical and religious dimensions of the text. Whereas Guo’s observations about sagehood, self-fulfillment, and the good life largely focus on the sage-ruler and his relation to his people, Cheng’s approach tends more to explore issues of personal self-realization and individual enlightenment, and, as such, is far more “religious” than Guo’s. However, when it comes to accounts of birds and beasts, parodies and satires, which address the limitations, failures, delusions and faulty assumptions, narrow-mindedness, and other human foibles, both Guo and Cheng see them all rooted in self-conscious thought and knowledge, and thus deadly impediments to enlightenment. Other passages about beasts and birds use animal fables as exemplars of truth concerning endowed personal nature and the natural propensity to stay within the bounds of individual natural capacity. Since the commentaries of Guo and Cheng add important dimensions to these accounts, this study explores these as well.

Reflection

Medieval literature abounds in stories about animals, of which there are two main, easily distinguished, varieties: animal fables and beast epic.1 Animal fables claim Aesop as their source. They are small narratives in which animals act and speak, with even smaller morals tacked on at the end of the little stories. They involve many animals (e.g., mice, lambs, cocks, foxes, birds, wolves, lions, and frogs). Such stories were used to teach schoolboys both Latin and some commonsense morality into the bargain (e.g., do not overeat; do not overreach; save up for the hard times; justice can be rough and ready, so keep clear of the predators). Beast epic, by contrast, is a group of interconnected narratives, set in the court of the lion; its single (anti-)hero is Reynard the Fox. Beast epic presents narratives of dark but vital humor that repeat the same narrative with many variations: its rhetorically brilliant fox, Reynard, outwits all comers by manipulating their bottomless greed. No matter how tight the corner into which Reynard has been backed, we know he will escape. He escapes through brilliant narrative control and intimate, intuitive knowledge of his enemies’ weaknesses. He exposes the arrogance of the greedy but even more damagingly the hypocrisy of the “civilized” order. We learn a fundamental truth from these stories: both animals and humans are predatory and self-interested ...

Animals

It is commonly assumed that serious philosophical reflection on animals goes back only a few hundred years, to the Utilitarians or to the rise of Darwinism. This volume shows that, to the contrary, animals have been a subject of controversy and reflection in all periods of the history of philosophy. We trace the story from Greek and Indian antiquity through the Islamic and Latin medieval traditions, to Renaissance and early modern thought, ending with contemporary ideas about animals. Two main questions that arise throughout the volume are: What capacities can be ascribed to animals, and How should we treat them? Notoriously ungenerous attitudes toward animals, for instance in Aristotle and Descartes, are shown to have been more nuanced than often supposed, while remarkable defenses of benevolence toward animals are unearthed in late antiquity, India, the Islamic world, and Kant. The book also includes philosophical exploration of such topics as cannibalism, animal instinct, and the scientific testing of animals. A series of interdisciplinary reflections sheds further light on human attitudes toward animals, looking at their depiction in visual artworks from China, Africa, and Europe, as well as the rich tradition of animal fables beginning with Aesop.

Az ut pictura poesis velencei mestere: Giovan Mario Verdizzotti és állatmeséi

The paper (The Venetian master of the ut pictura poesis: Giovan Mario Verdizzotti and his animal fables) is dedicated to a little-known author of the Italian Renaissance: Giovan Mario Verdizzotti, poet and painter, a pupil of Titian. His masterpiece (Cento favole morali / Hundred moral fables) belongs to the rich literature of the sixteenth-century fables, whose particularity lies in the fact that the illustrations were made by the author himself thus realizing in one person the principle of the Horatian ut pictura poesis. The paper analyzes some fables demonstrating the harmony between the story and the drawing, and at the same time compares the structure and style of his woodcuts with those of the collection of Faerno and Pavesi, declared sources of our author.