Assalamu alaikum and welcome back to the English
introduction to English literature course. We
continue our journey discussing and examining the
Renaissance and the Renaissance figures, literary
figures. Like I said before, we're done with
Shakespeare. But at the same time, we are never
done with Shakespeare, because Shakespeare keeps
showing up every now and then. Today, we move to
speak about more dramatists in the Elizabethan
age. But before I do that, there are three things
I want to say. Number one, Shakespeare was a
veteran.
A veteran is a person who lives in two ages. He
was a veteran not because he lived at the end of
the 16th century and the beginning of the 17th
century, but because he also lived at the time of
Queen Elizabeth and also King James. So we have
Elizabeth and
King James I.
who ruled England at the beginning of the 17th
century. So Shakespeare was a veteran. He was both
Elizabethan and Jacobian. James, Jacobian
literature figure. Elizabethan literature,
literature that was written during the life of of
Queen Elizabeth. But sometimes Shakespeare is
generally referred to as an Elizabethan figure,
although he died more than 15 years later after
her death. So a veteran is a person who lives in
two eras, in two ages, during two reigns or
whatever. The other thing I want to speak about
before I begin is a very important term for the
course and every course we're studying at the
English department. It's called the English Canon.
A canon. And the English canon is a very important
terminology we need to understand. Have you ever
heard of the word canon? Yes. I heard camera.
Camera, canon, okay. Interesting. Good to link
things. The English canon refers to the most
important literary work in English literature. The
English canon, again, refers to the most important
literary works, the most important literary
figures, like Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Marlow,
Milton, also novelists and playwrights, William
Wordsworth, T.S. Eliot, Charles Dickens, Thomas
Hardy, the names that when we study English
literature here in Gaza, for example, We study
these names. When people in China study English
literature, they also study Shakespeare, and
Marlow, and Johnson, and Dickens, and Hardy, and
Tesseri. When people in Africa study English
literature, in South America, and everywhere,
generally the most important literary figures and
literary works are studied. So those people and
these texts are called canonical texts. What is
the canon again? It's the most important literary
works and literary figures. the most anthologized.
When you open any English literary anthology,
you'll find Shakespeare. You'll find Wordsworth.
You'll find T.S. Eliot. When you open any book
about literature, you'll find these names there.
So the English canon as a term is something we
should know. But more important than this is how
accurate, how good, how objective the canon is. Is
it objective? Does it mean everyone in the English
canon is a good writer who wrote well and everyone
who is not a canonical writer canonical author was
kicked out of the canon because he wasn't good?
Let's go back. Now, in the 20th century, many
critics started to do some kind of revisiting,
rereading the canon. People no longer take things
for granted. It's like, OK, Shakespeare is always
in the canon. He's the only author that is always
in the canon. So he's the most canonical author.
People who started studying and analyzing to
understand the canon and what authors, what texts
we have and why, they realized very interesting
things. Number one, they realized that all or
almost all authors are men. So which excludes?
Women. Generally it excludes women. Two, almost
all the authors are white Christians. It excludes
non-Christians and excludes non-white people,
people of color. And almost all the people in the
canon are European. When it comes to England,
mostly they focus on people of London. What does
it mean? It means The canon as a term is not fair.
It's subjective. Because sometimes if your writing
is different, or if you don't try to please the
mainstream, the official people, people are not
going to be happy with you or with your writing.
So you will be kicked out of the canon. So that's
number one. We'll go back to the canon next week
when we discuss John Donne. But again, the canon
is the most important literary works of a
particular era. When we speak about the English
canon in literature, we speak about the big names,
big texts, Hamlet, Macbeth, texts by other people,
etc. Not only Shakespeare, but other poets,
Johnson, Marlow, Samuel Johnson, Dryden, Milton, T
.S. Eliot, William Wadsworth, William Blake. These
are always there listed as important figures. But
do we have other figures who were excluded and
kicked out? In this course, we will reveal some of
these names. And we'll study them to understand
why they were kicked out. And generally, it was
because they didn't write Things similar to the
mainstream idea of what it is to write poetry. The
second term is patronage. You know patron?
Patronage. A patron is like a sponsor. You know
what a sponsor is? Someone who gives you money.
Exactly, like someone who gives you money to
study, gives you money to build your house, to
start your project. So a rich man, a businessman
who gives you a politician maybe, a donor who
gives you money so you can start something, a
patron. Or patronage is also another important
term we need to understand if we just need to
understand the classical Elizabethan literature
before and after. Now, in literature, a patron is
someone, generally a man, but sometimes could be a
woman, who belongs to the high class, sometimes
the royal family, and who has a lot of money,
rich. What does this person do? He gives the poet
money. and provides the poet with protection.
Remember we're talking about the Elizabethan age
and even before Chaucer by the way had a patron.
He couldn't write poetry sometimes because he
didn't have someone to support him because if you
don't have money Being a poet was not a job.
Nobody would be buying you poetry. So you have to
have a job. If you have a job, you don't have time
to write poetry. So a patron, again, what's a
patron? Someone, usually a man, a rich man with
money. Sometimes the patrons, usually they have a
literary taste. So because they love poetry, they
love literature, they take care of poets. So they
give poets money. in order to keep writing, to
write more. And they also provide them with
protection. You know protection? If you say
something that displeases someone, if you
criticize someone, maybe someone wants to arrest
you, to punish you for something, they say, oh,
no, no, no, no. Don't. This man is protected by
this patron. So some kind of political and social.
And he would invite you to his court, his palace,
And patronage had played an amazing role in
supporting... Remember we spoke about the printing
press, how it encouraged mass production?
Patronage also encouraged a lot of literary texts.
Now, as a poet, you stay at home, you have enough
money to live, and you can write as much poetry as
you can, as possible. However, this patronage came
with a tax, a sacrifice. If someone gives you
money, supports you with money, you need to write
good poetry about them, to praise them. If he
brings a new cat, you'll be writing, oh, cat, thou
art. Shall I compare thee to the best cats in the
world? Or shall I compare thee to lions? You are
more fearful and intimidated. If he buys a mobile
phone, you'll be like, wow. So you need to write
good poetry to praise them. So again. A patron is
a person usually with a literary taste and a lot
of money who provides poets with money and
protection. And it's a change for praise, for good
poetry sometimes. We'll speak about this later on.
We'll mention this again and again, important
terms. Now let's go to Christopher Marlowe.
Christopher Marlowe. Listen. Marlowe
was a poet in a way he was contemporary to
Shakespeare. He was a dramatist and a poet. We
study him today as a dramatist. Later on, we'll
come back to him. Many critics believe that Marlow
could have become more famous than Shakespeare.
Not many, some critics. Could have surpassed
Shakespeare.
But the sad thing is that Marlow died very young
at the age of 32. And there is something
mysterious about poets who die young. There are
many English poets who die very young. And when
they die very young, they have this kind of aura
about them. They look like prophets. People love
them more, love their poetry more, and respect
them more. Because you feel that they died because
of their poetry. They died because they wanted.
It's like teachers who die young, they become like
woe. But sometimes, later on, they live forever,
which is not good for some students, maybe. So
what I'm saying here is that the fact that Marlow
died young, at the age of 32, made him famous poet
and dramatist. Many believe he was, during his
lifetime, he was the most famous dramatist. The
most famous dramatist. More than Shakespeare,
because Shakespeare at that time was beginning to
write the good stuff we're studying. We just
started. He was starting. So had he not died
young, he would have surpassed Shakespeare, become
more famous than Shakespeare according to some
views. Now there are similarities and differences
between him and Shakespeare. But before I go
there, I'll tell you something, a very funny story
about, not funny, but really interesting, about
poets dying because of the poetry and how
patronage is really a fun thing, how it
influences. Because if you have a patron, there
are usually competitors. Other poets want to take
money, so they just write bitter poetry to your
patron and et cetera. I'll tell you this story
about Abu Tamam in Arabic. You know Abu Tamam? Abu
Tanabbi, Abu Tamam, famous poems. And I told you
before, you need, if you want to love English
literature, you need to love Arabic literature and
vice versa. Start with the beautiful poetry, the
beautiful stories about poets and authors and
everything. Now Abu Tamam was praising one of the,
that's Al Mutanabbi. Abu Tamam was praising the
caliph sometime.
And the other poets around kind of didn't want the
caliph to like Abu Tamam and his poetry. So he was
like praising again his patron, the caliph,
saying, So
the
caliph,
praising him, comparing him to famous Arab
generals, poets and people and fighters and
everything. So one of the poets sitting around
competing told the caliph,
Yes, it's okay. This is not good poetry. He's just
likening you to ordinary Arab shepherds and
Bedouins and desert people. And this was, you
know, Abu Tamman felt pressured here because
someone is competing with him. So he just nodded
something like this. He nodded like this and
waited and remained silent for a short while. In
Arabic, it's very famous in Arabic literature.
It's called Imaet Abu Tamam, or Itraqet Abu Tamam.
Look it up on Google. Itraqet Abu Tamam, meaning
when Abu Tamam reacted to this guy accusing him of
not likening the caliph to something worthy. So he
nodded like this, and he raised his head. And he
said two of the most important lines of poetry in
Arabic literature. He replied, saying, You know
what it means?
I gave an example. I likened him to things lower
than him. فالله قد ضرب الأقل لمثله مثلا من المشكات
والنبراسي الله ايش قال عن نفسه عن نوره الله نوره
مثلا نوره كمشكاة مشكاة is nothing compared to
God's light but God used this مشكاة to make it
clearer to this so I was like whoa now the guy
telling the story he said I looked at the poem the
text and I didn't find these lines so he
improvised them you know improvised To save him
without preparation, all of a sudden. Improvise
them. He cuts
a piece of his flesh. Because the best of the
best, it takes from your health, your life, your
soul. It drains your life. And he adds, وَمَا
لَبِثَ أَبُو تَمَّامُ حَتّى مَاتَ بَعْدَهَا. يعني
كأنه أبو تمام died because of these two lines of
verse because this is the best of the best he
could have. And it's very beautiful here because
Yes, people believe that poetry could kill poets.
And that's why people love poets and respect them.
Because we think they're just suffering for us,
sacrificing their own lives for us. And it's very
funny how the patron thing here is at play where
poets are competing. So Christopher Malo died
young. He is different from Shakespeare in two
main things. Number one, he went to university.
Remember, Shakespeare didn't go to university. He
went to a grammar school to study grammar, study
rhetoric, study Greek drama, whatever Now this guy
is described as a university wit, you know, wit,
university wit The people who went to university
either Oxford or Cambridge are described as
university wits Shakespeare didn't go there. So he
was more educated. He learned more about cultures,
about tragedy, about literature, about language,
about grammar. The other thing generally when we
speak about Shakespeare remember Shakespeare we
said usually he gives every character the
appropriate language and appropriate reactions
that would reflect number one his social class and
his psychological status Again, for Shakespeare, a
king speaks like kings. A queen speaks like
queens. A princess speaks like a princess. A
prince speaks like a prince. A porter, a
gravedigger, speaks like gravediggers. A
messenger, an educated man, speaks like the
educated people. An illiterate person speaks like
everyone has his language. And this is something
that tells about the genius of Shakespeare. It's
not easy. I know people who write short stories,
and there is a kid five years old in the story,
and the kid speaks like an educated person, a
university graduate. Sometimes it's not realistic.
Shakespeare gives a very, in a way, realistic
image about the language. In Hamlet, Hamlet is a
poet, right? A university student, so his
language, his poetry is really interesting,
beautiful. But when he is confused, when he is
suffering psychologically, when he pretends to be
mad, his language is influenced, it changes,
deteriorates. Now in Marlow, everybody speaks a
very highly poetic language. So Marlow is
different. Almost everybody, no matter whether
you're suffering or not, whether you are a woman
or a man, whether you are rich or poor, educated
or uneducated, usually people speak very poetic
language. So two differences between Shakespeare
and Marlow. Marlow went to university, Shakespeare
didn't. He only went to a grammar school.
Shakespeare uses a language that fits the person's
social and psychological status. Marlow gives
every character in his play a highly poetic
language. Okay? Now, we've studied two important
works by Marlow. Number one is Dr. Faustus. Listen
to me. Explain this in detail. Dr. Faustus. And as
the name suggests, the main character is a doctor.
And his name is Faustus. Now, Dr. Faustus tells
it's a tragedy that tells the story of a
scientist, a man of knowledge and learning, a man
who almost knows everything. And I think it was
possible then 400 years ago to know everything. I
don't know. But because Dr. Faustus is a tragic
hero, you know, tragic hero, he has a tragic flow.
Tragic flow, a weakness. He has some problem.
Remember Hamlet has too much hesitation. Othello,
too much jealousy. Macbeth, Too much ambition.
Remember, we said that man wanted to achieve
perfection, but man is not perfect. So this leads
to his downfall. Now, Dr. Faustus had too much
ambition and too much pride. Excess, excessive,
you know excessive? Too much, a lot. It's good to
be ambitious, but it's not good to be over
ambitious or to be ambitious like Dr. Faustus. So
he knows everything and now he wants to know more.
He learns magic and he manages to summon the
devil, Satan. And he signs a contract. Remember
the contract, the bond in Shylock, the mansion of
Venice? He signs a bond with the devil.
He gets unlimited access to knowledge everywhere,
every time, in the past, in the future, anything
in exchange for what? His soul. So we have his
soul in exchange for Knowledge. Would you do that?
Really? You wouldn't? This is not one day, one
year, two years, five years, 24 years of unlimited
access to knowledge in exchange for... No, 24
years later you give your soul in exchange for
this, so you pay later on.
So 24 years, would you like that? Would you accept
that? I would do it because I wouldn't live as
long as... Yeah, that's possible Or I know one of
the other group once, you know what I'm saying? I
would give my soul for a year of unlimited
internet or unlimited electricity Okay,
it's funny but again priorities This is 24 years
unlimited access, exposure to knowledge. And he
lives a life of a person who can summon everybody,
know everything, ask everybody about anything,
goes back in time and in the future, and gets the
knowledge he wants. And before he signs the bond,
the angels and the people around him are like,
Faustus, don't do this. You're stealing. Again,
listen. He's not stealing himself, his life.
Because if he sells his life, he's going to die
later on. But he's selling his soul, the most
important thing a man or a woman has. And now, in
a blink of an eye, the 24 years just passed. And
one hour before that, the clock strikes 12 for
Satan to come. Satan, the devil, he regrets
everything. He feels very remorseful. He wishes
that he hadn't accepted the deal with satan but
can he go back it's too late it's too late look at
the the extract here this is an extract page 35
look here this is dr faustus when time is the
clock is ticking oh
soul Be changed into little water drops and fall
into the ocean. Be found ugly hell. Give not. Come
not, Lucifer. I'll burn my box. Now, too late to
burn your box. Someone read this, please. OK.
Also, bees change into little water drops and fall
into ocean. Never be found. Ugly hip, gap nut, gap
nut, lucifer. Lucifer. Lucifer. I'll burn my box.
I'll burn my box. Yeah? Also, bees change into
little water drops and fall into the ocean. Never
be found. Ugly hip, gap nut, gap nut, lucifer.
I'll burn my box. Excellent reading. Yeah, please.
Also, we change into little water drops, and fall
into the ocean near we found. Ugly hill gave nut,
come nut, lucifer. I'll burn my house. And like we
said last time, this doesn't perfectly rhyme here.
So this is A, B, C, and D. No rhyme here, despite
the S for plural. And this is something we
described as blank. Verse without rhyme scheme.
Irregular rhyme scheme. Irregular rhyme scheme is
different. It has rhythm. What is he talking to?
Oh, okay. He's talking to his soul. Can his soul
talk back? No. What do you call this in poetry, in
literature?
No. I'm not sure whether he's alone or not. I'll
have to check this. But when you talk to someone
who doesn't hear or something that doesn't...
Is a soul a human being? Can the soul talk back?
Can it listen to you? So you give things the
features of a human being. What is this?
Personification. From person, personify.
What is a personification? Yeah, when you say, oh,
fan, oh, mobile, my best mobile, you're talking to
your best mobile. But here, we don't only have a
personification of the soul. He's talking directly
to something that is not there here. Generally,
this is also called in literature an apostrophe.
You know apostrophe? Yes. When we say count, this
is an apostrophe. But in literature, when you call
something that doesn't hear you, that is far away,
or something that is not there, when you call for
them, oh soul, this is called an apostrophe. An
apostrophe always has a personification. When you
say, oh fan, my lovely fan. Can it talk back to
you? It's called an apostrophe. An apostrophe. So
he's talking to his soul and he's also directing
his speech to the hell. Ugly hell. Give not, come
not Lucifer. Don't open your mouth. Don't take me.
Lucifer is the name of the devil, Satan. Don't
come Satan. Don't come oh devil. Because
I regret everything. I want to burn my box. I want
to burn my box. But it's too late. And this is,
again, in a way, it reflects something about that
time, the society, when people wanted to know
everything. But many people wanted to know more
than it is possible for a human being. So the
theme here is excessive ambition. The tragic hero
here has too much pride, too much pride because he
doesn't listen to anybody, and too much ambition
because he wants to know everything. He breaks the
barrier between what it means to be a human being
and what it means to be, I don't know, an angel
maybe, or a superhero. What happens at the end?
Does he die? Yeah, of course. His soul is taken by
the devil. Why does he believe that he is correct?
Because he breaks the norms. Because he signs a
bond, not with the angels, but with the devil. And
the devil takes you only to hell. Lucifer is the
name of the devil. Another text by Christopher
Malo is The Jew of Malta. The Jew of Malta. And as
the name suggests, look at the name. What is
interesting in the name? Oh, Jew. Interesting.
Reminds us of what?
Now, Marlow wrote his text before Shakespeare
wrote The Legend of Venice. Before. And it's true
that Shakespeare was inspired by Marlow.
In many ways, the Jew of Malta has the character
Barabas. He's the first main Jewish character in
English literature.
And in this text, we have also the first main
black servant, black character, Isamora. Black
character, Barabas' servant. Look at the
interesting story of this play. It's a tragedy, of
course.
The story takes place in Malta. You know Malta?
It's around near here.
It tells the story of Malta, a place controlled
and ruled by Christians. By Christians. Now the
Ottoman Empire, you know, the Muslims, the Turks,
Turkey now, the Ottoman Empire sends a message to
Malta, to the ruler, saying, give us money, if you
don't, we will invade you and destroy you and kill
you. And the ruler is like, oh, I can't defend. I
don't have a strong army. But I have a plan. I'll
collect the money from the Jewish people, the
Jewish merchants, and give the money to the Turks.
It's interesting how we have black people,
Muslims, Jews, and Christians in a text 450 years
ago. I don't want to describe this as a clash of
civilizations, a clash of this. But we'll see how
not only Jews, but also Muslims and black people
are represented negatively. There is a lot of
racism here. Barabbas is depicted in a really
horrible, horrible way. A lot worse than Shylock.
Because in Shylock, sometimes we feel sorry for
him. We sympathize with him. But this is horrible
depiction. That's why many Jewish people hate and
dislike Marlow, accuse him of being anti-Semitic,
and I think he is. But don't be happy about any
racist person because Darul was once a racist,
always a racist. He's racist against Jews, against
Muslims, and against Africans and black people. So
the story in brief goes like this. The money is
taken from Barabas and other merchants to be given
to the Ottomans and Barabas feels angry and he
wants to take revenge. He uses his daughter and
that's probably the worst thing I have ever said.
Someone using his own daughter to take revenge and
because of his daughter two people fall in love
with her and that's his plan and they kill each
other, they die. First People, two people who die
here. And his daughter Abigail discovers how
horrible her father is and like Jessica in the
mansion of Venice, she leaves her father, she
converts to Christianity. And is that it? Is that
all? Of course not. He swears to take revenge.
To come after his daughter. She becomes a nun, you
know, a nun, a woman who gives herself to God in a
church. He uses Isamor with his help. He poisons
not only his daughter, but all the nuns in the
church and they all died, including his daughter.
Is that all? We haven't started yet. Very long,
very complicated story, interesting story. But
remember in Shakespeare, in Shylock, we were like,
oh, he's good, he's not here. Oh, I feel sorry for
him. With Isamur, it's always evil, pure evil. So
later on, when he is discovered, he's arrested in
a way, but he again kills the people who arrested
him. He causes the death of many people. And then
he sends to the Ottomans, who haven't yet received
the money, tells them, listen, I'll help you
occupy Malta. Conspires with them, they attack
Malta, they occupy the whole island and many
people are killed and they choose him to be the
ruler. And then that's it? No. He conspires
against other people, wants to kill more people
and causes the death of more probably scores of
people. I think hundreds of people died because of
Barabbas. and at the end he's discovered they knew
that he was behind most of these evil things and
he was put in a cauldron you know a pot and he was
killed tragedy horrible tragedy i'm not sure
whether you would like to watch something like
this or read something like this it's very tragic
very dark and there's a lot of racism yes I think,
remember in Shakespeare, we asked, is Shakespeare
a racist or was he exposing racism in his age?
Many people say Shakespeare was as racist as any
Elizabethan person. But here we have a lot of anti
-Muslim, Islamophobia, anti-Jewish sentiment, anti
-Semitism, and racism against black people.
Yeah, it's a matter of question. But I wouldn't
generally describe Shakespeare as a racist. But he
discusses racism. In my opinion, he's exposing
racism in his community. But this one, we don't
generally feel one tiny little bit of sorrow for
this man. He's evil. A man who uses his daughter
as a prostitute to kill people. A man who kills
his own daughter, who poisons her. Notice the
stereotype about Jews poisoning people and
everything.
That's Christopher Marlowe. We'll come back to
Marlowe as a poet. OK? We'll just, sorry? So why?
Maybe he wrote this tragedy. No, Hitler is a
racist person. He's a Nazi. He's a horrible person
who hated not only Jews, but Muslims and black
people and all people who were different. He was a
white supremacist who believed only that Germans
are the pure race. There's no justification for
hurting anyone, let alone burning millions and
millions of people. I read that Hitler loved a
Jewish girl. Many stories about Hitler are really
like fake in so many ways. But what he did is
horrible. And as Palestinians, we don't like, we
hate Hitler. We shouldn't have any kind of
sentiment. Remember, we detach ourselves from
these racists. And at the same time, the Jews
generally are not to blame for what's going on to
us. We have the Zionist movement, Israel, many of
them are Jews, and that's the problem, the
occupation.
The Holocaust does not justify the destruction of
Palestine and the occupation of Palestine. And
also, the occupation does not mean we should be OK
with people killing like Hitler and everything.
But that's something else. So in brief, probably
we can leave Ben Johnson for next class. Ben
Johnson, very quickly, he was arrested at the
beginning of his life, more than once. And maybe
because he was critical of the monarchy, he was
critical of some people, he went to prison. But
clearly, later on, he realized that, OK, I know
how to be close to probably the king or the queen.
And he was friends, in a way, with King James. So
he, like Shakespeare, he's a veteran. He was
Elizabethan and Jacobian at the same time. He
wrote several plays, every man in his humor, every
man out of his humor. And two more important works
are Volpone and The Alchemist, like chemistry,
alchemist. I'm not going to tell you more about
this because only we need to know the names here.
But more important than this, and I'll stop here,
is what is called the mask.
The mask. And I'll conclude here. Remember the
play The Globe the stage people would be standing
and paying probably a penny and people would be in
the rows paying more money rich people Now the
mosque is also a play But But as a play the mosque
because King James loved the theater, so he
wouldn't go out He brought the theater and the
people and everything inside. He's the king,
right? And Johnson became a friend of hers. He
wrote several masks. A mask is a short play,
written especially for the king and the royal
family, performed on occasions only once. The king
shouldn't watch something twice. He's a king. So
short, written particularly for the king and the
royal family, performed once. And generally, we
don't have professional actors. they would, the
actors would be members of the noble families and
the royal families and this is the mask, mask from
mask because when the actors were on the stage you
know it wasn't good for the royal and noble people
to be actors they would hide their faces or part
of their faces you would still recognize them but
it's still like they're being someone else so the
mask is different from the play it's short it's
generally written for the royal family about the
royal family performed once and the actors are not
professional actors but from the noble from the
noble and the royal families an important text
here is a play written by again Johnson written by
Johnson it's called the mask of queens as the name
suggests Mask, a play written by Johnson. Short to
be performed once in the court for the king and
the royal family and the noble family.
Now, we finished generally Ben Johnson. I'll stop
here. For next class, we'll have again in brief
two more dramatists, but then we'll speak about a
very important movement called
The Puritans. And we'll see what happened to
English drama and theater. If you have a question,
please do ask.
Marlow, Shakespeare. Think of comparing and
contrasting Shylock and Barabas.
Any question?
Please. If Shakespeare was a black person,
wouldn't he be included to the margins? Here? The
canon. The canon, et cetera? Yes, the canon. There
were many black people then, but probably he will
be ignored. Later on, we'll see how women were
ignored from the canon. Not because they don't
write well, but because they are women. So the
canon is not objective. For example, Afrabin wrote
a novel, a short novel, 50 years before the main
novel, the main novelist, Daniel Defoe. But 50
years later, when a man wrote a prose text, the
novel was like, whoa, this is something new. And
Afrabin was ignored. So I'll stop here. Thank you
very much. And we'll see you next week, inshallah.