Orality and Refractions of Early Literary Textualizations in Gurdjieff’s  Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson

doi:10.1558/ijsnr.v6i2.29250

International Journal for the Study of New Religions, Vol 6, No 2 (2015)

Orality and Refractions of Early Literary Textualizations in Gurdjieff’s Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson

Michael Pittman

Issued Date: 21 Jan 2016

Abstract

In this article I present and discuss some of the literary aspects of G.I. Gurdjieff’s Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson (published in 1949) and analyze, in broader strokes, the reflection and residue in his work of oral and early literary cultures. Written in the 1920s, and revised into the 1930s, Gurdjieff’s 1,200+ page magnum opus draws significantly from pre-existing literary and religious traditions and stands in the liminal space between orality and writing in a number of notable ways. Not only is Beelzebub’s Tales told in the mode of a dialogue, between Beelzebub and his grandson, Hassein, but the text of the Tales themselves reflect an influence both direct and indirect from oral storytelling, popular culture, and early literary forms that were prevalent in wellknown, as well as lesser known, literary texts particularly from the eleventh to the fourteenth centuries. I first address briefly Gurdjieff’s own attitude toward oral culture and language as expressed in the preface to his work. I then focus on Beelzebub’s Tales and several points of correspondence with early textualizations of oral culture such as The Arabian Nights, Boccaccio’s The Decameron, and a notable example from the second century, The Golden Ass. Gurdjieff’s Beelzebub’s Tales stands in its own time and context between oral and literate cultures and employs and parallels many of the formal and cultural elements of these early textualizations in the same way that they did in their own time.

Download Media

PDF (Price: £17.50 ) Restricted Access

DOI: 10.1558/ijsnr.v6i2.29250

References

Apuleius.

2008. The Golden Ass. New York: Oxford Press.

Bakhtin, Mikhail.

1990. The Dialogic Imagination. Texas: University of Texas Press.

Boccaccio, Giovanni.

2003. The Decameron. New York: Penguin Classics.

Burgess, Glyn S. and Keith Busby, trans.

1986. The Lais of Marie de France. New York: Penguin Books.

Challenger, Anna T.

2002. Philosophy and Art in Gurdjieff’s Beelzebub: A Modern Sufi Odyssey. New York: Rodopi.

Doody, Margaret.

1997. The True Story of the Novel. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press.

Faivre, Antoine and Jacob Needleman.

1992. Modern Esoteric Spirituality. New York: Crossroad Publishing.

Gurdjieff, G. I.

1950. Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson. New York: E. P. Dutton and Co.

1963. Meetings with Remarkable Men. New York: E. P. Dutton and Co.

Irwin, Bonnie D.

1995. “What’s In A Frame?: The Medieval Textualization of Traditional Storytelling.” From Oral Tradition 10 (1): 27–53.

Irwin, Robert.

2003. The Arabian Nights: A Companion. New York: I.B. Tauris.

Mahdi, Muhsin, ed. and Hussein Haddaway, trans.

1995. The Thousand and One Nights. New York: Brill Publishers.

Ong, Walter.

1988. Orality and Literacy. New York: Routledge.

Barnam, Henry D., trans.

1977. Tales of Nasr-ed-din Khoja. New York: AMS Press.

Pittman, Michael.

2008. “Laughter as Demolition and Reconstruction in Beelzebub’s Tales.” In
G. I. Gurdjieff: Armenian Roots, Global Branches, edited by Michael Pittman, 13–32. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Press.

2012. Classical Spirituality in Contemporary America: The Confluence and Contribution of G. I. Gurdjieff and Sufism. New York: Continuum Publishing.

Shah, Idries.

1968. The Way of the Sufis. New York: Arkana.

Equinox Publishing Ltd - 415 The Workstation 15 Paternoster Row, Sheffield, S1 2BX United Kingdom
Telephone: +44 (0)114 221-0285 - Email: [email protected]