Subjunctive Explorations: The Parodic Work of Pīr Kathā
Tony K. Stewart
Chapter from the book: Stewart, T. 2019. Witness to Marvels: Sufism and Literary Imagination.
Part of
Chapter from the book: Stewart, T. 2019. Witness to Marvels: Sufism and Literary Imagination.
A close reading of the story of Badar Pīr confirms both Frye’s and Fuchs’ characterization of romance. The meandering trajectory of plot, however, is subjunctive, exploring possible ways the pir Badar might find a place in a Hindu Bengal, so too his son Manik as avatar of the age. Machery argues that because the stories are fictions, they cannot convey religious truth, only a simulacrum of it. In so doing, they mimick the mangal kavya genre which tells how gods and goddesses establish worship on earth, only here how musalmani teachings will be established. Following Hutcheon’s analysis, parody is the form adopted and irony is its tool, creating a new discursive space for the musalmani perspective in a traditional Indic world.
Stewart, T. 2019. Subjunctive Explorations: The Parodic Work of Pīr Kathā. In: Stewart, T, Witness to Marvels. California: University of California Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/luminos.76.d
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Published on Sept. 13, 2019