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Arabian Nights week 3
Introduction
Age of Empire
- English translations from arabic came later. Lane had genuine desire to communicate and educate.
- Burton's translation was a personal take, feeding into Decadent literary community
- But most Western translations based on Galland
- Inspired realist fiction and Western form of novel: Dickens, Shelley, Brontë drew from the tales
Visual delights
- Ballet, fashion, theatre, all inspired by Modernist versions of Nights.
- Stressing eroticism and violence over adventure and wonder
- Popular with early film makers, especially special effects
- Spectacle over adherence to stories
Notes and questions
- Anyone know the history of the European novel? Are the Arabian Nights this influential?
- Seems to be an increasing emphasis on the exotic, otherworldly elements of the Tales
- Does the role of Tales in film, a visual medium, overshadow the narrative of the Tales? Something to pay attention to in the read.
Stories
- Notes point out connection between this tale and Shahrazad's position.
- Prompt to consider justice
- Social / cultural context. What did you learn?
- Merging of magical and realistic, fatalism
Merchant and Jinni
- Merchant inadvertently kills a jinni's son
- jinni swears to kill the man in retrubution, but he bargains for a delay of a year.
- When he returns to the jinni, three old men appear.
- First man bargains a tale for a third of hte merchant's life
- Tales for merchants, not rulers
- Accepting of fate, upholding of oaths
First Old Man
- Man married, but childless. Takes a lover, fathers a son.
- Wife learns magic, transforms lover and son into cattle
- After some time, man kills his transformed lover, but refuses to kill his son.
- Shepherd's daughter discerns the truth
- She marries the restored son and curses the wife
- Jinni agrees it is a strange tale
Notes and questions
- First tale by Shahrazad, first nested tale.
- Shahrazad chose a dangerous tale to tell first. How much attention should we pay to this, or is this just a good opening story, frame be damned?
- Thoughts on the presentation of Shahrazad's and Shahriyar's interjections each night? And that Shahriyah isn't named, only referred to as "the king"
- What do you think of the merging of magic in the tales, and the matter-of-fact way people accept it?
- How do these stories compare to what you thought they'd be, in terms of tone and content?
- There's a lot of notes, setting context and drawing out themes. Are these useful in the book, or getting in the way of enjoyment?
Comments
It was nice to see Jane Eyre popping up here! Maybe there was some serendipity involved in September's choice after all...
But more seriously, I found it fascinating (and entirely credible) how many influential authors of the 19th century novel had been influenced by one or other of the available versions of The Arabian Nights. It's a logical development on from the discussion about the Romantics that we had last week.
One of the key factors of the development of the novel, which was preceded by (if you like) pseudo-novel fictions like those based on letters (epistolary, eg Richardson), or on travellers' diaries (eg Swift and Defoe - all three of these were writing in the 1700s), was the creation of a narrative underpinned by both plot and character development and set in a world that was quite likely unknown to the reader but credible on the basis of what they knew or had heard. So I can easily see how The Nights, with both the frame plot with its major existential threat, and the (many) interior sub-plots each with their collection of characters and dangers to be faced, might inspire a 19th century author to create a novel with its own interior world. Dickens, as we probably all know, published his books episodically in journals before they were ever collated as whole books, and so again we have the partial tale ending in some sort of cliff-hanger theme to them.
Another thing I took away from here was the idea that early fantasy was largely inspired by this. I had previously assumed that the preoccupation with elves, dwarves, and the rest was because that was our own legendarium, but the intro here was suggesting that middle eastern fantasy came first - so maybe all the elves etc were brought in by Tolkien and others specifically so as not to overlook the roots of European mythology?
Shahrazad's stories - yes, better and more engaging than the vizier, though a big takeaway here was how short each night's sections were! I had always thought that (say) Sinbad or Aladdin would consist of multiple sections, but I hadn't really expected the portions to be so very short. Either the king has a really short attention span (or maybe was excessively fatigued by his previous attention to Shahrazad's personal charms) or else he let her get away with only a tiny bit of exposition every day. You'd have thought that given his prior determination to execute brides he'd be negotiating along the lines of "I want at least as much story telling again if I'm going to give you another day".
But I guess the main point is that "the king" has kind of faded into the background now, and being unnamed is part of that backgrounding. We no longer really care why Shahrazad is telling the stories (nor indeed as critical readers whether they all come from the same collection of different sources) - we just want to hear the next bit. Narrative is a profoundly powerful communication tool.
That's a good question to ask. Are you looking forward to the next tale? Do you want to know the story of the Second and Third Old Men?
Regarding the influence of the Tales on European fantasy, the Wikipedia article on the history of fantasy doesn't have a lot to say about the Tales. It's mainly about building on myths and folklore.
Really enjoyable section. I largely agree/see @RichardAbbott 's points and remarked on the same.
I think this historical section puts to rest the question about influence. It seems big, and I'm seeing it in everything now. Even in the introduction to the monthly book, The Wager, we're told in the intro that the lives of the men under trial hinged on their telling of a really good story! Is that more Arabian Nights influence, at least on the author of The Wager (if not necessarily on the crew).
I'm finding the tale to be super compelling. I'm making notes. Aside from my surprise at the short installments, I'm also struck by the the degree of continuity between the ancient Babylonians and the Arabs. For example, the rule of talion is a play here - a life is demanded for a life. Now, in Babylon, things might have been more literal - with the life of the merchant's son demanded in exchange for the life of the Jinn's son.
"I have good news - will you pay?" This struck me as very Babylonian as well - travellers would be rewarded (often with a garment, or with livestock) for bringing news from afar to a king. To the point where someone could expect to be paid for their news.
Bargains as sacrosanct - in Babylon, bargains were sealed with an oath, and food was eaten. If someone reneged on the bargain, the food might turn to poison.
There's also some continuity in regards to views on sorcery. Babylonians didn't believe in 'Jinn', but it's easy to see how Jinn might have descended from the spirits/demons that Babylonians did believe in.
I can't wait to see how this story ends (though I think I can guess).
On to some of the specific questions:
What do you mean by 'dangerous'? Do you mean risking boring the king? Why do you think so? I found these most engrossing, and not only do we want to know what a happens to the merchant, but also if the 3 old men succeed in their ploy.
This presentation works, given it's repetitiveness. In this format, we can largely ignore the repetitions, and just read the stories. On the other hand, we do a lose a little of the overarching tale this way, by relegating it to secondary status. Even so, I think this method is probably best.
Merging of magic? Do you mean the inclusion of magic? I mean, I'm a fantasy fan, afterall. I approve. And why wouldn't they accept it? The world WAS magic before the industrial revolution. We all know that.
Pretty much exactly what I thought, so far - maybe with a little less humour.
No, quite useful. Enjoying these. Of course, I'm not reading this for pure entertainment. Or, at least, I'm deriving as much entertainment from the learning as from the distraction of the story.
The Introduction states that many of these tales are pre-Islamic, so there's no reason why some of these tales couldn't be Babylonian. There's also the cultural continuity argument: many of these tales are recorded in Mesopotamia.
I'm not sure where I'm going with this...
It's the observation from the notes before the story. The Merchant and Jinni features the excesses of the powerful, murdering those who've slighted them. The First Old Man is about an evil woman. These could well play into Shahriyad's anger, prompting him to kill Shahrazad.
I don't think the story of the Hunchback is in this collection. I recall that one being a bit of a farce.
Yes!
Hmm, that's a curious difference from what is said here. I wonder if it's just that the Wiki editors themselves aren't aware of any such connection, or if Yasmine Seale is overstating the case?
I couldn't wait! These stories always charm the pants off me!
I would think Fantasy has become synonymous with Tolkien for most people - certainly to the mass public. The fact that there was a fantasy genre before Tolkien utterly revolutionized it is lost or immaterial. Tolkien based his works on northern European myth and legend specifically, so that is what is explored as the roots of fantasy.