Contents of
Vol. 18, No. 2 (2004)

Editorial Policy

Guidelines for Submissions

From the Editor

Preface to the Special Issue on "The Arabian Nights: Past and Present"

Ulrich Marzolph

ARTICLES

Galland's "Ali Baba" and Other Arabic Versions

Aboubakr Chraïbi

In order to write "Ali Baba," a tale of thirty-six published pages, Antoine Galland amplified the text he had noted down in his diary, which only comprised six pages. While doing so, Galland also omitted certain details, such as the presence of food in the cave. These details enable us to decide whether the versions of the tale of "Ali Baba" recorded in the Maghreb and other Arab regions depend on Galland's text or whether they are independent. The analysis aims to contribute to a better understanding of the formation of this tale.

Siblings in Alf Laylah wa Laylah

Hasan El-Shamy

Patterns of interaction between siblings in the male-oriented Arabian Nights conform to El Shamy's theory called The Brother-Sister Syndrome. The core of this dyadic relationship is a stable pattern of sentiments (learned feelings) involving the entire family: brother-sister mutual love; sister-sister rivalry; brother-brother rivalry; child-parent(s) hostility; husband-wife hostility (or lack of love and affection); brother-sister's husband hostility; sister-brother's wife rivalry; and brother sister's child affection; a brother-brother's son hostility. The latter set of relations describes the affect generated by a maternal-uncle and a paternal uncle, respectively.

Shahrazad is One of Us: Practical Narrative, Theoretical Discussion, Feminist Discourse

Susanne Enderwitz

The Thousand and One Nights is the result of a cultural and ethnic melting-process in which Indian and Persian--besides Greek, Egyptian, and Turkish--elements blend together. Shahrazâd herself is such an amalgamate, as she speaks the Arabic language, bears a Persian name, and displays an Indian narrative mode. On the other hand, and still in the twenty-first century, in Europe and America as well as in the Near East, writers use both the characters of Shahrazâd's tales and her narrative mode for their own writing. This article explores Shahrazâd's multilayered roles as a heroine, narrator, and woman.

Slave-Girl Lost and Regained: Transformations of a Story

Geert Jan van Gelder

The essay treats a story found in many forms in Arabic literature, with the following basic structure: A man owns a slave-girl; they love each other; he becomes destitute and is forced to sell her; the new owner, aware of their attachment, magnanimously returns her to her previous owner. The Thousand and One Nights contains two such stories, as well as some others with closely related motifs. Many more versions, some of them virtually identical to those of the Nights, are found in works belonging to Arabic "polite" or "elite" literary culture, from the ninth century onward. An appendix offers summaries of several versions.

Creativity, Random Selection, and pia fraus: Observations on Compilation and Transmission of the Arabian Nights

Heinz Grotzfeld

The number alf (1,000) in the Arabic title has been a permanent challenge for copyists and compilators committed to the transmission of texts of the Arabian Nights. "Complete" sets of the work seem to have survived in their entirety only a short time. So copyists must have felt invited to (re)create a complete Nights. This paper presents the different solutions applied by copyists and compilators in order to achieve their ambitious goals, the honest and deceitful methods and the tricks displayed in the Arabic texts as well as in the European translations of the Nights.

Framing in Oral Narrative

Lee Haring

What is the device of framing, in narratives, but a formal stylization of people's annoying habit of interrupting their discourses and switching messages? The device, for which the Thousand and One Nights is famous, is used by narrative artists everywhere, though most favored in stratified societies. Modes of criticism and commentary also function as frames, for interpretive purposes. The varieties of framing--frame stories, opening and closing formulas, the "runs" of Irish storytellers, interruptions by the performer, channel-switching--call for various modes of criticism. Examples come from Madagascar, Mauritius, the Comoros, Seychelles, and Réunion.

Political Thought in The Thousand and One Nights

Robert Irwin

There is more political thought in the Nights than would appear at first sight. Political concerns are to the fore in the story collection's exordium. Some of the stories can be seen as belonging to the mirrors-for-princes genre and, if much of their content seems banal, this was usually true of the nonfictional essays in the genre. It is also true that philosophers sometimes used fables as vehicles for their thoughts on politics. Though criticism of tyranny and the positing of alternative societies are quite rare in Islamic literature, examples of both can be found in the Nights.

Further Considerations on Galland's Mille et une Nuits: A Study of the Tales Told by Hanna

Sylvette Larzul

Whereas the earlier volumes of Galland's French translation are based on Arabic manuscripts, the later volumes include a variety of tales originating from the oral performance of the Syrian narrator Hanna. This second part of Galland's work leaves more room for creation than the first one and emphasizes exoticism to a larger extent. Apart from being constantly concerned with the representation of cultural specificities, the author multiplies the exotic leitmotivs and thus depicts a universe composed of khans, sofas, and veils. Galland's penchant for luxury also reigns freely in those tales, with his artistry giving rise to a magnificent Orient overflowing with gold and gems.

The Teacher and the Taught: Structures and Meaning in the Arabian Nights and the Panchatantra

Sadhana Naithani

The Arabian Nights and the Panchatantra have both been studied from various perspectives. Both contain a large number of stories under one umbrella or frame-story, and the umbrella-story of each work has remained more stable through the ages than the set of stories contained within. This article is a comparative study of the two umbrella-stories, both of which have an identity independent of the stories they shelter. The comparative study proceeds from the observation that the structures of the two frame-stories are strikingly similar, though composed of completely different elements.

Jacques Cazotte, His Hero Xaïloun, and Hamîda the Kaslân: A Unique Feature of Cazotte's "Continuation" of the Arabian Nights and a Newly Discovered Arabic Source That Inspired His Novel on Xaïloun

Joseph Sadan

Jacques Cazotte was a distinguished eighteenth-century French writer who, about three years before the guillotine put an end to his life (1792), published the Continuation of the Mille et une Nuits. A number of the stories transmitted to him by his "informant" Denis Chavis are contained in an Arabic manuscript dated 1772 that is preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. The origin of Cazotte's novel Histoire de Xaïloun, included in the Continuation, until now was unknown. The comparison between the short Arabic story Hamîda the Kaslân (or The Story of Lazy Hamîda), recently discovered in another Arabic manuscript, and Cazotte's long novel demonstrates the writer's creativity.

Reviews

Critical Exchanges

Professional Notices

Contributors

Index to Volume 18 (2004)