The Arabian Nights has recently benefited from a wave of scholarly attention in honor of its tricentennial as a classic of European literature. The Arabian Nights in Transnational Perspective is a sort of supplement or appendix to The Arabian Nights’ Encyclopedia (Marzolph and van Leeuwen, 2004). The chapters in Transnational Perspective were originally papers delivered at a conference to celebrate the publication of that encyclopedia, and have already been published in 2004 in Marvels and Tales (the first half of this book) and in Fabula (the second half). Most of these articles deal with the latest instantiations of an ongoing process. The Arabian Nights, so famously a work without an author, also seems to be without an end. It is comprised of entertaining and instructive narratives from oral and written traditions meant for popular or learned audiences of several ethnic groups. In the course of its development, the Nights has swallowed up whole collections of tales, and it continues to shed tale cycles, tales, and motifs which are reworked and adapted for use in various elite and popular cultures--the transnational perspective of the title here.
Part 1, called “Galland’s Translation and Its ‘Continuation’,” covers tales that Galland added to the corpus (articles by Aboubakr Chraïbi and Sylvette Larzul) and a sequel written by the French writer Jacques Cazotte (article by Joseph Sadan). Part 2, “Texts and Contexts,” begins with Heinz Grotzfeld’s observations on early versions of the tradition. Geert Jan van Gelder examines stories based on the plot of a romance between a man and slave girl, Hasan El-Shamy analyzes sibling relationships, and Robert Irwin considers tales with a political agenda. Section 3, with articles by Sadhana Naithani and Lee Haring, is about framing in narrative. Section 4, “Translation, Adaptation, and Reception,” shows what has happened to the Arabian Nights in printed sources in Hawaii (article by Cristina Bacchilega and Noelani Arista), East Africa (Thomas Geider), Turkey (Hande A. Birkalan-Gedik), and Iran (Ulrich Marzolph), and in German movies (Donald Haase) and in feminist discourse (Susanne Enderwitz). Section 5 covers the legacy of the Nights in oral tradition in Sicily (Francesca Maria Corrao), Greece (Marilena Papachristophorou), Afghanistan (Margaret A. Mills), and Balochistan (Sabir Badalkhan).
All of the articles are interesting and well-organized, and as a whole they avoid tedious duplication. It is interesting to see that only half of the contributors are specialists in Arabic studies, which reinforces the idea that the Arabian Nights has significant ramifications in other areas. However, the proceedings of a conference are inevitably diverse and at least a little idiosyncratic (see Dundes 1971:191). Some of the articles were designed to be comprehensive, while others are focused case studies. In particular, gaps in coverage are evident in sections 4 and 5 (some of the subjects that fall in these gaps have already been addressed elsewhere, but you have to find the relevant material on your own). Nevertheless the various articles in these two sections, in addition to conveying information, provide models for further efforts to assess the influence of the Nights in other regions and media. One of the recurrent findings of recent studies of the Arabian Nights is that this collection often inspires its compilers, translators, and even scholars to participate in its tradition by improving, elaborating, retelling, or adding new material. Its powers of inspiration are evident in this collection of scholarship as well.
Works cited:
Dundes, Alan. “A Study of Ethnic Slurs: The Jew and the Polack in the United States.” Journal of American Folklore 84 (1971): 186-203.
Marzolph, Ulrich, and Richard van Leeuwen, with Hassan Wassouf. The Arabian Nights Encyclopedia. 2 vols. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2004.
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[Review length: 605 words • Review posted on April 9, 2008]