Amazon.com description: Product Description: This book is a study of anagnorisis/recognition: an important aspect in the ways in which narratives in general are structured and thematic. Beginning with an analysis of The Maqamat and related picaresque narratives, Philip Kennedy also considers the Koran and Hadith as religious narratives; some mystical narratives, and edifying anecdotage, romance in The Arabian Nights and Sira, Aristotle's poetics in the Arabian sphere, some Ishmaili narratives of clandestine travel and emergence, as well as some thoughts on the modern novel. Providing a fascinating point of comparison between Western and Arabic literature, this book illuminates how anagnorisis functions in Western poetics and how it relates to the Arabic tradition.