Dream interpretation and parodies of translation in Aḥmad Fāris al-Shidyāq’s al-Sāq ʿalā al-sāq

Abstract

ABSTRACT In Aḥmad Fāris al-Shidyāq’s 1855 semiautobiographical picaresque al-Sāq ʿalā al-sāq (Leg Over Leg), the author’s double, the Fāriyāq, holds a series of jobs that parodically stand in for al-Shidyāq’s own employments. This article addresses the Fāriyāq’s career as an oneiromancer, reading it as an allegory of al-Shidyāq’s work as a Bible translator for European Protestant missionaries. By representing the muʿarrib (translator into Arabic) as the muʿabbir (dream interpreter), I argue, al-Shidyāq places the translator in a genealogy of professional interpreters, inheriting the tradition of early-modern Ottoman court interpreters who wielded the power of expertise against the social and economic power of their patrons. At a moment of historical shift from circuits of scribal patronage to a more horizontal print market, al-Shidyāq removes the oneiromantic tradition from its hierarchical patron economy and parodically reinscribes it in an emergent print culture, initiating an anonymous yet intimate community of laughter.