The manṣūbah: a Forgotten Mini-Genre of Arabic Vernacular Poetry, 8th/14th–13th/19th Centuries

The paper presents a now forgotten mini-genre of Arabic vernacular poetry that flourished between the 8th/14th and the 13th/19th century: the manṣūbah is a narrative poem cast in various vernacular forms ( kān wa-kān, zajal, mawwāl ) that recounts how the pauper poet deceived and seduced a mostly wealthy and socially superior beloved by appealing to her/his greed. To bring out the contours of the genre, I summarize the plots of the seven extant manṣūbāt known to me, only two of which have been published so far, introduce their authors so far as they are known, date the poems approximately, and analyze their contents and rhetorical elements. I conclude with some suggestions regarding the Sitz im Leben of the poems.