Long after writing had to someextent fixed their forms, the oral repetition went on and some of them could beheard in Mohammedan countries almost down to our own times.In the two hundred years of their currency in the West, the stories of the"Nights" have engrafted themselves upon European culture. Of the personality of an originaleditor or compiler, even, we have no trace. As inthe case of our own popular ballads, whatever marks of individual authorship anyone story may originally have borne, would be obliterated in the course ofgenerations of tradition by word of mouth. Bothbefore and after they were placed in the mouth of Shahrazad, they were handeddown by oral recitation, the usual form of story-telling among the Arabs. Of a collection of fables, fairy-stories, and anecdotes of historical personagessuch as this, there can, of course, be no question of a single author. There isa fair amount of agreement on the thirteenth century as the date of arrangementin the present framework, though they were probably not committed to writingtill some two centuries later. Burton,who believed in a strong Persian element, thought that some of the oldest tales,such as that of "Sindibad," might be as old as the eighth century of our era some thirteen he dated tenth century, and the latest in the sixteenth. As to date, estimates vary by several centuries. From such evidences as the detailed nature of thereferences to Cairo and the prevailing Mohammedan background, Lane argued thatit must have been put together in Egypt but this opinion is by no meansuniversally accepted.
Thus "Ali Baba and the FortyThieves" is found in no Oriental version of the "Nights," and "`Ala-ed-Din andthe Wonderful Lamp" was long supposed to be in the same situation, though withinrecent years it has turned up in two manuscripts.īoth the place and the date of the original compilation are still matters ofdispute among scholars. No two manuscripts have precisely the same contents, and someof the most famous of the tales here printed are probably not properly to beregarded as belonging to the collection, but owe their association with theothers to their having been included by Galland. The tales in the collection of Galland and in more complete editions discovered since his time are chieflyPersian, Indian, and Arabian in source, and in ultimate origin come from all theends of the earth. Whether more than the framework of the Arabian collectionwas borrowed from this Persian work is uncertain. Itwas introduced to European readers by the French scholar Galland, who discoveredthe Arabic original and translated it into French in the first decade of theeighteenth century but its earlier history is still involved in obscurity.There existed as early as the tenth century of our era a Persian collection of athousand tales, enclosed in a framework which is practically the one used in thepresent collection, telling of a King who was in the habit of killing his wivesafter the first night, and who was led to abandon this practise by thecleverness of the Wezir's daughter, who nightly told him a tale which she leftunfinished at dawn, so that his curiosity led him to spare her till the taleshould be completed. "THE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS" is one of the great story-books of the world.
It will give specific literary device information that I think will behelpful to place these stories in their proper context as well as demonstratehow influential they became through succeeding literary generations (in story,play, music, and film). I would encourage you to read the Wikipedia article on thesetales. If you don't want to read all of this post - the schedule and link to the textare at the end.
#1001 ARABIAN NIGHTS STORIES ARE ADULT SERIES#
Some of the more familiar taleswill come towards the middle to end of this series of readings (Aladin, Sinbad,Ali Baba, etc.) You do not haveto read them all, unless you wish to do so. Our next few weeks will be devoted toreading some of the 1001 Arabian Night stories (circa 800 AD). I am late postingour next readings, so please forgive me. I hope you all had a chance to finish up Beowulf last week. Dear Readers - Good Tuesday Morning to you all!