Heber the Kenite Deceives a Poor Yokel: A Literary Reading of the Twenty-First Gate in Yehuda Al-Ḥarizi's Sefer Taḥkemoni (Compared to its Arabic Source, Al-Hamadhāni's Al-Maqama Al-Baghdādiyya)

Abstract:This paper proposes a close-reading of one of the best-known maqamas in Yehuda Al-Ḥarizi's Sefer Taḥkemoni, which is here compared with the original Arabic version, Al-Hamadhāni's Al-Maqama Al-Baghdādiyya. This reading is based on the hypothesis that some of the well-known medieval rhymed Hebrew stories are based on uncertainty as a poetic principle and that this principle can explain (and be explained by) their frequent use of contradictory elements and varied forms of the ironic, the grotesque, and the ambiguous.