In many regions of the Muslim world, biographical works with laudatory purposes were quite common in previous centuries, and they ended up merging into the literary genre of hagiography. ¹

Over time, Islamic hagiography has developed several sub-genres that have often taken on specific definitions according to their textual, thematic, and structural features, such as for example ṭabaqāt (“classifications, generations”), taḏkira (“remembrance”), or sīra (“life story”), in which the biographical notice (tarǧama) of a pious figure highlights the spiritual qualities (faḍāʾil) and reports collections of anecdotes (aḫbār) and saintly marvels (karamāt).

One of these hagiographic sub-genres are the so-called manāqib al-awliyāʾ (lit. “virtuous of the saints”), manāqib al-ṣulaḥāʾ (lit. “virtuous of the righteous”), or more simply manāqib (sg. manqaba), whose meaning would be something like “character traits” or “deeds” of a saint (walī), ² which are an excellent combination of religiosity, history, and culture. ³ As clearly explained by Giovanna Calasso, these works are precious sources for a greater awareness of regional history and popular religion:

One should not expect to find theological treatises when reading these works, because the manāqib are always characterised by a very basic intertextuality and a great simplicity of the moral and religious messages conveyed. However, they are also very interesting because of their style and their literary and content quality. For this reason, the opinion expressed in his time by Robert Brunschvig can still be considered fundamentally appropriate:

The final words of this quotation are meaningful, as they refer to the linguistic profile of these documents.

The written productions of pre-modern Arabic which feature dialectal elements vary from one genre to another ranging from poetry to prose, as explained by Liesbeth Zack in her excellent survey on the potentialities of research in this field, ⁶ and, in this respect, the genre of the manāqib are often a treasure of linguistic anomalies.

Their authors are often semi-illiterates who address a semi-illiterate readership by using a register that reflects their linguistic skills. The outcome is exemplified by texts written in a Classical Arabic featured by the influence, if not exactly the great presence, of colloquial elements which demonstrate the informal use and circulation of these documents among the community of devotees.

As already observed by Mohamed Meouak, unfortunately until now this kind of material has been investigated very partially and irregularly from a linguistic point of view, although they can give significative information about the Arabic spoken in pre-modern ages. ⁷ The most suitable definition in this case is still debated: “Middle Arabic” or “Mixed Arabic”, “Moyen Arabe” or “Arabe moyen” ⁸ or even other labels refer to texts that at first glance could be considered as written in Classical Arabic, but in which the substandard regional features are so strong that the result is a highly interfered, and the text is written in something different from the pure Classical language. A very clear definition has been provided by Joshua Blau:

The interference in these texts of the so-called “Neuarabisch”, i.e. the (regional) dialect or, often more precisely in our case, the author’s one, occurs at different levels: in phonetics (even if many authors tend to classicize the orthography, thus obfuscating its interpretation), morphosyntax, and lexicon. ¹⁰

A descendant from a tribe with a long tradition of maraboutism, the Fawātīr (of the Awlād Saʿīd, Riyāḥid Hilālians) from which the nisba al-Faytūrī is derived, ʿAbd al-Salām b. Salīm al-Asmar ¹¹ was born in 1475 in Tripolitania, more precisely in Zlīten. The toponym of this village is derived from Iṣliten, a Berber branch of the Nefzawa tribe, and in the manāqib of al-Asmar it appears in two spelling variants, زليتن and يزليتن. For the sake of completeness, the oldest variant of the toponym, including that used by Ibn Ḫaldūn (1332-1406) in his works, exhibits an initial <y> and a central <ṣ>, like in the spelling يصليتن. Another spelling variant is زليطن that is the written version of a phonetic realisation ẓlīṭən, where the first consonant is a pharyngealised alveo-dental sibilant (even if written <z>) that extends the emphasis also to the following syllable, but this spelling variant is completely absent in al-Asmar’s manāqib. After a long period through the centuries of alternances, the contemporary spelling of the toponym is زليتن.

This region had many relations with the Tunisian milieus as it was ruled by the Ḥafṣid governor Abū ʿAmr ʿUṯmān al-Manṣūr (1434-1488), ¹² following the renewed expansion process started by Abū Fāris ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz (1394-1434). ¹³ According to tradition, ʿAbd al-Salām could have received the laqab of “al-Asmar” either because of the darkness of his face (asmar “brown”) due to sun exposure while worshipping, or because of sleepless nights spent praying (samar “night conversation”).

He was initiated into Sufism by his mentor of Moroccan origin ʿAbd al-Wāḥid al-Dukālī who lived in Misallāta, southeast of Tripoli, and was the master of the ʿArūsiyya order ¹⁴ founded by the Tunisian saint Abū l-ʿAbbās Aḥmad Ibn ʿArūs (died in 1463). ¹⁵ It is worth remembering that even Ibn ʿArūs (or Ben Arous, according to the contemporary Tunisian custom) had his own manāqib in the form of the book entitled Ibtisām al-ġurūs wa-wašy al-ṭurūs bi-manāqib al-šayḫ Abī l-ʿAbbās Aḥmad b. ʿArūs which was prepared by one of his Algerian students, a certain ʿUmar b. ʿAlī al-Ǧazāʾirī al-Rāšidī.

The region was going through a difficult political period, characterised by a succession of internal uprisings against the Ḥafṣid authority, some of which were even violent. It is in this context that we must place certain statements often attributed to some prominent figures of that time who saw ʿAbd al-Salām al-Asmar as a new, strong, religious leader. We cannot be sure nowadays to what extent the attribution of some statements is an a posteriori ideological work, but nevertheless we can be certain of the “messianic” overtones of some accounts.

Suffice it to recall a couple of examples. Ibn ʿArūs would have said: «sa-yaḏ̣haru bi-Ṭarābulus al-ġarb raǧul yuʿrafu bi-ʿAbd al-Salām fātiḥan li-hāḏihi l-ṭarīqa» ¹⁶ (“A great walī, named ʿAbd al-Salām, conqueror of this ṭarīqa, will appear in Tripolitania” ¹⁷ ); Aḥmad Zarrūq (1442-1493), the famous Moroccan jurist and saint affiliated to the Šāḏilī order, ¹⁸ would have told the muʾaddib who was lecturing in the Quranic school «sa-yakūnu li-hāḏā l-walad šaʾn ʿaḏ̣īm bi-Ṭarābulus ilā an yafūqa ahl ʿaṣrihi» (“This guy will be great in Tripolitania until he surpasses the people of his time”). ¹⁹ Needless to say, this ideological reconstruction also pertains to the saint’s family which would have been composed of pious spirits: ²⁰ his mother, a chaste, virtuous woman, was born on the day of ʿīd al-fiṭr and was named Salīma; his father, a simple yet strict man was named Salīm; his grandfather died a martyr (istašhada) during one of the “oppressive Christian campaigns” (al-ḥamalāt al-naṣrāniyya al-ḏ̣ālima) against Tripolitania and was named Sulaymān bin Sālim. ²¹

Al-Asmar founded his own order, called al-Salāmiyya and frequently known as ʿArūsiyya-Salāmiyya, which was based on ecstasy and spiritual attraction, characterised by many ritual, musical, and bodily practices typical of asceticism and fakirism, that flourished quickly and imposed itself on the other orders of the region spreading to Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya. ²²

Having passed away in 1573, al-Asmar was buried in the same city of his birth, Zlīten: the tomb became a regular destination of pilgrimage, as often happens with the popular cult of the saints that has its principal expression in the so-called ziyāra (“visit”) during which the pilgrim quests for baraka (“blessing”). ²³ A Quranic educational institution named al-Ǧāmiʿa al-Asmariyya was founded close to his tomb and a nearby mosque. However, in August, 2012 the shrine was severely damaged and practically destroyed by Salafist paramilitaries.

Al-Asmar’s fame is also demonstrated by several testimonies of authors not directly related to Tripolitania.

The Moroccan Sufi and scholar ʿAbd Allāh bin Muḥammad al-ʿAyyāšī (1627-1679), for example, wrote a travelogue of his journeys to the holy places of Islam in the Ḥiǧāz, commonly referred to as al-Riḥla al-ʿayyāšiyya. ²⁴ During his stay in the region, he had a visit to Zlīten and to the zāwiya of ʿAbd al-Salām al-Asmar and wrote that the saint was described as “abundant in saintly marvels, high-ranking, and among the best pupils of Aḥmad Ibn ʿArūs from Tunisia” («kaṯīr al-karāmāt, ʿālī l-maqāmāt, min aǧall talāmiḏat sīdī Aḥmad ibn ʿArūs nazīl Tūnis»). Alongside his moral virtues and spiritual qualities, a quick reference seems also to echo the story of al-Asmar’s grandfather and the socio-political conditions of the region, because “the reports of his victories over the titans and the liberation of many captives from the Christian yoke during his lifetime were famous” («aḫbāruhu fī qahr al-ǧabābira wa-fakk al-asrā min aydī l-ifranǧ fī ḥayātihi wa-baʿda mamātihi šahīra»). ²⁵

The popular devotion to such a figure, of course, could not fail to encourage the composition of a hagiographic work.

Thus, the manāqib of ʿAbd al-Salām al-Asmar was prepared, around 1590, by Karīm al-Dīn al-Baramūnī al-Miṣrātī and the book is entitled Rawḍat al-azhār wa-munyat al-sādāt al-abrār fī manāqib Sayyidī ʿAbd al-Salām al-Asmar. Born in Misurata in the spring of 1488, al-Baramūnī’s father was an Egyptian who arrived in Libya to follow the šayḫ Aḥmad Zarrūq. Al-Baramūnī started his education with Zarrūq and later joined the šayḫ ʿAbd al-Salām al-Asmar: at the very beginning he was one of his opponents, but finally ended up being one of his most wholehearted devotees. After the death of his master, al-Baramūnī moved to Egypt, to Tanta, and finally to Makkah. ²⁶

The book Rawḍat al-azhār by al-Baramūnī underwent a recension by the Tunisian Sufi and scholar Muḥammad b. Muḥammad b. ʿUmar al-Maḫlūf, with the title of Kitāb tanqīḥ rawḍat al-azhār wa-munyat al-sādāt al-abrār fī manāqib mawlānā sayyidī ʿAbd al-Salām ibn Salīm . Born in 1864 in the city of Monastir, on the Central Tunisian coast, Muḥammad al-Maḫlūf was an adherent of the Šāḏilī order and held the post of qāḍī, preacher, and bāš muftī. The work that made him famous was principally the book Šaǧarat al-nūr al-zākiya fī ṭabaqāt al-mālikiyya, published in Cairo in 1932, which was a compilation of the biographies of all the Maliki scholars from both the East and West. His book Mawāhib al-raḥīm was first published in Tunis in 1907-1908 and later reprinted by al-Maṭbaʿa al-Yūsufiyya in Cairo on behalf of al-Maktaba al-Lībiyya in 1966. ²⁷ For our study we used an old edition published in Beirut by al-Maktaba al-Ṯaqāfiyya. ²⁸ We are aware of the risks indicated by L. Zack concerning the text editors who very often feel the need to correct the language of a deviant text in order to align it to a standard level for a wider public. ²⁹ However, despite these considerations, the text of these manāqib exhibits dialectal interferences that are worthy of investigation.

The narrative parts of the text are written in Classical Arabic. However, the most captivating sections of the book are the reported direct speech that is attributed to ʿAbd al-Salām al-Asmar.

This reported direct speech is typically introduced by:

Both these conditions trigger a direct speech in which al-Asmar speaks in the first person. His words almost always consist of poems which are marked by mystical exaltation of the ego and can be easily defined as theopathic utterances (šaṭaḥāt), ³⁰ and this particular condition explains also the common presence of the verbal combination anšada yaqūl “he sang and said”.

These poems are sometimes in a register really close to Classical Arabic. It is the case, for example, of a passage ³¹ in which the šayḫ al-Samalqī described his visit to al-Asmar for a question concerning the sowing and he could not complete his speech that immediately our saint was rapt in ecstasy and began to recite («fa-lam yatimma kalāmahu illā wa-š-šayḫ aṣābahu ḥāl ʿaḏ̣īm wa-anšada yaqūl»):

To fully understand the atmosphere of these theopathic moments, the passage quoted goes on to explain that immediately the clouds appeared and the rain covered the east and west of the earth («fa-lam yatimma kalāmuhu ḥattā ḏ̣ahara as-saḥāb wa-nazala l-maṭar allaḏī ʿamma mašāriq al-arḍ wa-maġāribihā»). ³²

In other cases, Classical Arabic is not written in its cleanest form and some phonetic interferences of the dialect show up in the spelling, as shown by this short example that deals with the relations with the Aḥāmid tribe: ³³

But most of the theopathic utterances consist in vernacular or semi-vernacular poems where the linguistic register, contrary to the previous example, is quite distant from Classical Arabic.

This (semi-)vernacular language is a typical example of Middle Arabic and/or Mixed Arabic, of which we offer a summary below.

Scholars who are merely interested in dialectological issues will enjoy and delight while reading these manāqib because, as already seen, they will find many examples of linguistic deviances from the norm. But the general results they may come up with, however, should not come as much of a surprise, as the deviant material mostly seems to fall within the broad range of linguistic variation that any Middle Arabic text exhibits.

Thus, in order to avoid the (dangerous and even too frequent!) sterility of such a linguistic analysis for its own sake, it seems useful to seize the opportunity to also provide an idea of the contents of these manāqib. The plentiful intertextual and cultural references, the wealth of the content as well as the style, make them a work that should attract attention not only from the point of view of language history, but also as an example of mystical language and popular culture.

The reported direct speech of ʿAbd al-Salām al-Asmar consists almost always in šaṭaḥāt expressed in the form of (semi-)vernacular poetry.

The book under examination includes a huge corpus of poems that await to be studied by scholars, and the present paper represents the occasion to offer an excerpt of this poetry.

It is not possible to apply the established Khalīlian metrical system to this type of poetry, because this system was conceived for the syllabic structure of Classical Arabic and not for the dialect. Moreover, since our text is not vocalised, it becomes impossible to comment with certainty on the nature of short vowels, diphthongs, and consonantal clusters. ⁸¹

The following lines give an excerpt of a poem extracted from the manāqib: ⁸² it is rewritten in its original shape and, finally, is accompanied by a translation. The poem has a monorhyme structure with two hemistichs in which each one rhymes with the other.

Translation:

Despite the brevity of this excerpt, the complexity of these sixteen verses brings several remarks and observations. We organised them based on the line number.

[Verse 1]

The poem opens with the self-presentation of al-Asmar who describes himself as the first among the aqṭāb (a possible reading could be rayyəs əl-aqṭāb). It is well-known that quṭb (pl. aqṭāb) is a rank of the cosmological Sufi hierarchy, a terminology that pertains to the Classical Arabic lexicon but that, as a technical term, is maintained also in dialect, as confirmed by its presence in the Marçais & Guîga’s Glossaire of Takrouna according to which a quṭb is a “personnage qui a atteint le plus haut degré de sainteté”. ⁸³

In this self-presentation, al-Asmar claims himself as the ṣāḥib al-aḥzāb. The word ḥizb (pl. aḥzāb) is often used in Sufi literature where the figurative and symbolic language of poetry suggests a double meaning. The first value is undoubtedly technical: the term indicates a sixtieth of the Quran, the group of verses used during the collective recitation in a Sufi ceremony. However, the context also suggests a second meaning: an implicit reference to Q 33, the Sūra al-Aḥzāb (The Confederates), where the word ḥizb indicates the coalition of polytheists who fought against Muslims in the so-called Battle of Ḫandaq that took place in 627. In this way, al-Asmar cannot only introduce himself as the one of the Quranic sixtieths, but also as the one who can count on his ḥizb of Sufi companions ready to fight against the unbelievers.

This is obviously a subtle image of warfare which, however, should come as no surprise: war metaphors are one of the topoi of Sufi literature, in which the boundaries between a spiritual ǧihād and a physical ǧihād (with the well-known distinction between ǧihād kabīr and ǧihād ṣaġīr) are often blurred, also because of the historical and political circumstances in which a composition was written.

These warlike images are suggestive and take up much of the text.

[Verses 2-6]

Immediately following the first verse, a comparison between the šayḫ and some weapons begins.

The use of a whole range of technical artillery terms (midfaʿ, bārūd, kūr, qaws, and naššāb) is very striking.

The first evidence of the use of firearms in the Maghreb dates to Ibn Ḫaldūn’s account of the siege of Siǧilmāsa (1274) by the Merinid sultan Yaʿqūb. Despite some fluctuations in the meaning of the word through the Maghreb, at least in the Ḥafṣid Tunisia midfaʿ was a “cannon”, and this midfaʿ fired kūr “cannon-balls, shell” (sg. kūra). These kūr were filled with bārūd “(gun)powder”, a formula based on saltpeter that was described for the first time by Ḥasan al-Rammāḥ (d. 1294). ⁸⁴

Al-Asmar’s powder is “thundering”, an expression that survived over time. In fact, according to Marçais & Guîga’s Glossaire (V, p. 2211), bārūd ṣādi is “poudre qui résonne, est souvent mentionnée dans la poésie populaire”. ⁸⁵ The same dictionary also includes a verse of a msaddes in a Bedouin dialect that says «ma zīnt l-ʿmur kān lubb ^u ādi // u-bārūd ṣādi // ubnāt teḥt elmraggem eddādi» [original transcription], translated into French as “l’hornement de la vie, c’est seulement les steppes, la poudre tonnante et des jeunes filles qui se balancent sous les étoffes bariolées des palanquins”. ⁸⁶

All this warlike background is not surprising when one considers that even today in several areas of North Africa al-Bārūd is also the name given to the ceremony consisting of a dance with a team of players with rifles forming a circle around a chief.

Nevertheless, aside from firearms, the repertoire of the poem obviously also includes cold weapons.

[Verses 4-6]

Al-Asmar’s sword is ready to be used.

Starting from the role played in the tradition by Ḏū l-fiqār (the Prophet’s sword) as well as from the nickname of Sayf al-Islām attributed to Ḫālid ibn al-Walīd (7^th century), the sword is the symbol of religious power and the tangible emblem of an authority that can unleash a war or sanction peace.

However, the sword is accompanied by a bow and arrows, which in our text are represented by qaws and naššāb, ⁸⁷ both cold weapons which are part of the heritage of images used in Sufism, if one thinks for example of the more recent Rimāḥ ḥizb al-raḥīm ʿalā nuḥūr ḥizb al-raǧīm (The Lances of the Compassionate against the Throats of the Party of the Accursed) by al-Ḥāǧǧ ʿUmar (1793-1864).

Even the tradition of the Moroccan malḥūn, nowadays, takes up the same motif of the arrows:

Sibylle Vocke translates these verses as follows:

Incidentally, it is interesting to observe that S. Vocke explains in a footnote that the word nbāl refers to a type of “arrows” bigger and of a wider range than the nšāšəb. ⁸⁹

[Verse 6]

Returning to our poem, the text suddenly switches from the metaphor of war to that of animals, as the šayḫ becomes a “tawny lion” that can decree the death of the enemy.

A symbol of courage, firmness, cruelty and strength, the lion is a motif widely used in literature and in the East is not infrequently a symbol associated with ʿAlī. Literature on this subject is vast but suffice it to remember al-Damīrī (d. 1405) and his Ḥayāt al-ḥayawānāt al-kubrā (The Life of the Biggest Animals), in which he describes the physical and behavioural characteristics of the lion, its medicinal properties, and the interpretation of its presence in dreams. The oneiric dimension is particularly evocative: in a dream, the lion is a powerful man (sulṭān), a strong tyrant who can dispense death, but who can also instill science and wisdom. ⁹⁰

In our poem, this lion is “tawny” (aṣfar) and perhaps the choice of this colour is not accidental or dictated solely by the need to describe the animal’s fur, if one thinks that Marçais & Guîga’s Glossaire (V, p. 2297) includes oṣṣēd laṣfor [original transcription] which is described as a label frequently used in reference to saints.

Aṣfar is used in Q 77, 33, referring to animals: «ka-annahu ǧimālat-un ṣufr-un» “as if they were yellowish camels”, where the camels have the same colour as the flames of Hell.

On the other hand, if the yellowness of the aforementioned Quranic verses evokes eternal damnation, in other cases the Islamic tradition gives to yellowness a value of brightness, glossiness, purity, and fidelity of faith; all of the elements that metaphorically represent salvation. This is the case in al-Durra al-fāḫira (The Precious Pearl) in which al-Ġazālī describes the scenario of a judgement day where the fortunate are divided into several groups, among them the lovers of God who are awarded with a banner (rāya) that is yellow and that is placed in the hands of Aaron (Hārūn). ⁹¹

[Verses 10-11]

Explicit or implicit Quranic references continue in the other verses.

“The pond is mine” stands for al-ḥawḍ ḥawḍī (hypothetical transcription based on Classical Arabic), where the reference is clearly to ḥawḍ al-Kawṯar “the pond of abundance”, one of the four rivers that flow through Heaven (Kawṯar, Kāfūr, Tasnīm, and Salsabīl) from which the righteous will drink Divine Grace in the afterlife, and the righteous will receive the Master’s intercession for the final judgement (see faṣl al-ḫiṭāb of Q 38, 22).

[Verses 13-14]

Punishment quickly becomes an almost physical threat again, as al-Asmar’s minšār (“saw”) is ready to saw off the culprits. Here, there is a subtle play on words because the meaning of the root √nšr is twofold, as it means both “to cut” and “to spread”. Now, if “spreading” the Sufi lore is one of the main concerns, the same root derives minšār, a noun of instrument (ism al-āla), with the meaning of “saw”. Thus, the “sawing” noise made while reciting ḏikr out loud gave to a particular moment of the ceremony the name of ḏikr al-minšār (lit. “recitation of the saw”).

No transgression will be permitted, otherwise the sinner will be turned away from that light which was repeatedly evoked so far and will be trapped in darkness. Which kind of darkness? That of a sirdāb located in the depths of Hell. Roughly speaking, a sirdāb is an underground living room, and even Beaussier’s dictionary of the Maghrebi dialects translates the word simply as “souterrain” without nuances (p. 469). According to Nejmeddine Hentati, the term is used more frequently in the Orient to indicate an underground prison, whereas the Maghreb prefers dāmūs, kahf, and dihlīz, ⁹² the latter confirmed also by R. Brunschvig who mentions it as the underground jail of Kairouan (“cachot souterrain”). ⁹³

Therefore, the context in which the term is used (sirdāb qaʿr ǧahannam) is certainly a metaphor of the imprisonment of the soul in Hell. Moreover, the choice of the term cannot be accidental for the Sufi tradition, if one thinks for example of ʿAbd al-Wahhāb al-Šaʿrānī (d. 1565) who explained that, for the practice of invocation, the disciple must choose a dark area of his retreat (ḫalwa) or his underground cell (sirdāb). ⁹⁴

[Verses 15-16]

Finally, while sending his greetings (salām), a symbol of enthronement of the Saints in Heaven, the final verses use two roots (√dwy and √ṭbb) which refer to the disease/healing dichotomy initiated by Q 2, 10 («fī qulūbihim maraḍun fa-zāda Llāhu maraḍan wa-lahum ʿaḏābun alīmun bi-mā kānū yakḏibūn», “there is a sickness in their hearts, then God increased their sickness, and there is a painful punishment for the lies they told”). ⁹⁵

The motif pervades all the Sufi literature up to the present day, including the North African malḥūn. The oral tradition of Sīdī ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Maǧdūb in Morocco, for example, still provides numerous cases today, such as the following:

Alfred-Louis de Prémare translates the verses as follows:

In bringing to a close our remarks on the language of the manāqib and on this poetic excerpt by ʿAbd al-Salām al-Asmar, a few final considerations are in order.

In these pages, we have tried to take a general look to three aspects:

As explained above, and as is quite obvious, the linguistic study of Middle Arabic elements could be further explored: we gladly leave this task to those who are ready to find in this text other deviations from Classical Arabic. Indeed, it seems to us a task that, although meritorious, would still risk not bringing enormous scientific advances, and this for two reasons:

Instead, it seemed much more prolific to dwell on certain lexical and content aspects of the manāqib.

Several lines of the poem contain themes and motifs that our analysis has tried to trace in a pendulum-like movement from classical sources to oral attestations of modern popular literature.

The various questions raised by the text confirm that al-Asmar’s manāqib, like any other works of this genre, are a treasure trove from a linguistic, historical, and religious point of view. Indeed, texts of this type contain many elements of great interest not only for the study of the evolution of regional Arabic(s), but also for reflecting on those intertextual and literary patterns that continue to be passed on over time.

A key point is that the constant repetition of the same terminology and motifs which originated in works of classical literature and finally end up in one broad paraliterary strand, has not happened by chance.

The relationship between hagiographic literature and, for example, the sīra genre, as well as the relationship between zuhdiyya, šaṭḥ, and malḥūn, should be examined in depth from a diachronic, as well as spatial, perspective that does not take into account individual geographical areas.

However, perhaps such a significant inquiry should also focus on establishing how “high” literature has provided inspirational material for popular literature, and how the latter has reworked this material in order to return it, finally, in another form, to that same “high” literature.