So what is the history of Scheherazade and her
1,001 tales? Where did this story about stories come from? The Vintage Sleuth
is on the case!
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| "Princess Scheherazade," by Edmund Dulac, 1907 |
The first known use of the title “One Thousand and
One Nights” appears (in Arabic) in, of all places, a 12th century
notebook belonging to a Jewish bookseller from Cairo. The content of the book,
however, originates from much earlier. The frame narrative--that of Scheherazade
and of the ruler Shahryar, whom she entertains with stories for a thousand and
one nights to stave off his boredom and her execution--is modeled on a Persian
story, translated into Arabic in the 9th century. This “A Thousand
Tales” tells how a caliph, who kills a new wife every night for three years, is
finally outwitted by a vizier’s daughter and her slave-girl.
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| "The Fisherman and the Genie," by Dulac, 1907 |
The compendium of stories from this 9th century collection and other later manuscripts originate, of course, in the oral tradition, making these stories-within-a-story potentially much older than the literary versions. According to The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales (to which I owe most of the information I relate in this post--thank you Oxford!): “The oldest preserved manuscripts, comprising a core corpus of about 270 nights, appear to date from the 15th century.” The oral stories, therefore, likely date between the 9th and 15th centuries--or slightly earlier. Once the stories began to be written down, a wide variety of anonymous authors, all writing in Middle Arabic but with different styles, interpreted and re-wrote them either as part of the now-expected frame narrative or as independent tales. Studying these multiple versions, scholars have discerned three distinct oral traditions from which the tales originated: Persian, Indian, and Arab.
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| "The Princess of Deryabar," by Dulac, 1907 |
So how did these Middle Eastern tales come to impact the Western imagination so heavily? Other wonderful examples of Middle Eastern literature from this period, such as The Romance of ‘Antar (11th-12th centuries), is much less well known outside of culturally specific studies.
The answer lies, as it often does, in the world of
publication and translation.
Antoine Galland was the first European translator
of the tales. His 12-volume compendium, Le
Mille et une nuits (1704-1717), was based mainly on one Arabic source with
the addition of a translation of “The Voyages of Sinbad,” as well as tales told
to him by an Arab acquaintance. These included “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves”
and “Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp.” Over 120 years later, Edward William Lane
published the first English translation of the tales (1839-1841)--heavily
culling from his sources, so his final product was much shorter than Galland’s.
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| "Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp," by Dulac, 1907 |
Some forty years after this, Richard Burton set out on a monumental translation project that resulted in 10 volumes entitled “Book of a Thousand Nights and A Night,” published between 1885 and 1886. Apparently not completely satisfied, he then published “Supplemental Nights” in the years immediately following. These volumes were fanciful to the extreme, taking artistic license when translation failed. From 1921 to 1928, Enno Littmann transcribed a German edition of 6 volumes with an incredibly faithful translation and scholarly footnotes. (Funny side note: he translated the scandalous scenes into Latin, not German.) Beyond Littmann, the twentieth century oversaw a multitude of translations of the tales into a wide variety of European (and other) languages.
Galland’s translation from the early 18th
century marked the beginning of the popularity of the Nights. “In some respects, the Nights
are more important and famous in the West than they are in the Orient” (OCFT). The list of famous authors and
poets and artists who drew inspiration from the Nights is incredibly long and varied, including Votaire, Samuel
Johnson, Robert Louis Stevenson, Herman Melville, Edmund Dulac (whose gorgeous
illustrations I showcase here), Jorge Luis Borges, Salman Rushdie, Neil Gaiman,
and, of course, Disney.
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| "City of Brass," by Dulac, 1907 |
The beauty, the wonder, the enchantment, and the
Otherness of these tales draws us in and refuses to leave our minds even after
the book cover is closed. Join the family of Enchanted Conversation, and let us
know which of the thousand and one (give or take) tales is your favorite!
Christina Ruth Johnson
recently received her Masters in Art History with a focus on the
ancient Mediterranean and a side interest in the 18th and 19th
centuries. Her other great love is fantasy literature from ancient times
to present day.
References:
Jack Zipes, ed. The Oxford Companion to Fairy
Tales. Oxford University Press, 2000.
Robert Irwin. The
Arabian Nights: A Companion. London: Taurus Park Paperbacks, 2005.
