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Arabiannights

The document provides background information on The Arabian Nights collection of stories. It originated in the Middle East between AD 800-900 and includes folk tales from various cultures in the region. Some of the most famous stories, like Aladdin, were added later by European translators. It discusses important European translations from the 18th-19th centuries that helped popularize the stories in the West. It also gives an overview of the frame story, where Scheherazade tells stories to the sultan over 1,001 nights to avoid execution. The document concludes with memorable images from some of the classic tales.

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Aileen Tamayo
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323 views11 pages

Arabiannights

The document provides background information on The Arabian Nights collection of stories. It originated in the Middle East between AD 800-900 and includes folk tales from various cultures in the region. Some of the most famous stories, like Aladdin, were added later by European translators. It discusses important European translations from the 18th-19th centuries that helped popularize the stories in the West. It also gives an overview of the frame story, where Scheherazade tells stories to the sultan over 1,001 nights to avoid execution. The document concludes with memorable images from some of the classic tales.

Uploaded by

Aileen Tamayo
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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The Arabian Nights

Background
• First collected stories written AD 800–900
• Stories come from the Middle East and South Asia. The
roots of many tales can be traced back to mythology and
the cultures of such areas ass Arabia, Yemen, India,
Persian, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Syria and Asia Minor.
• Some of the most famous stories appear to have been
added to the collection in European editions ("Aladdin's
Wonderful Lamp," "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves," and
"The Seven Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor.“) These
particular stories are probably genuine Middle Eastern
folk tales but were not part of the "Nights" in its Arabic
versions, but were interpolated into the collection by its
early European translators.
Important Versions
• The first European version of the Book of the Thousand
and One Nights (1704-1717) was translated into French
by Antoine Galland from an Arabic text and other
sources. This was a 12-volume book.
• The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night (1885) by
Sir Richard Francis Burton, was ten-volume translation
of Galland (he added six more volumes later). Though
printed in the Victorian era it contained all the erotic
nuances of the source material. He avoided strict
Victorian laws on obscene material by printing a private
edition for subscribers only.
• The Arabian Nights' Entertainments, edited by Andrew
Lang (1898), was one volume, heavily edited for children
and illustrated by H. J. Ford.
The Frame Story
• Details differ, but Scheherazade is always the
daughter of the Grand-Vizier and willingly
marries the sultan, thus beginning the stories.
• The different versions have different individually
detailed endings (in some Scheherazade asks
for a pardon, in some the king sees their
children and decides not to execute his wife, in
some other things happen that make the king
distracted) but they all end with the king giving
his wife a pardon and sparing her life.
A collection of memorable images from
The Arabian Nights
Exotic imagery excited
Western minds
The Sultana
Held
Conversation
with a Man.
Arabian Nights -
Illustrated by
Virginia
Frances
Sterrett. Penn
Publishing
Company,
1928.
Ford’s Illustrations from The
Arabian Nights’ Entertainments

Frontispiece
Scheherazade, Dinarzade,
The Sultan pardon’s Scheherazade
and the Sultan
Ford’s illustration (1898)

The Genius
and the
Merchants

The Princess
veils herself
when she
sees the
Monkey
Images from Sinbad’s Voyages
More of Ford’s illustrations
The
genius
comes
out of the
jar

The king of China looks at the


ring on the princess's finger.
Ford’s illustrations from Aladdin
The slave of the
ring appears to
Aladdin

Aladdin's mother
brings the slaves
with the forty
basins of gold
before the sultan.

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