A 1909 illustration by Maxfield Parrish of the tale of Ali Baba: \u201cCassim \u2026 was so alarmed at the danger he was in that the more he endeavoured to remember the word Sesame the more his memory was confounded.\u201d
(Wikimedia Commons public domain illustration)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Are the Arabian Nights<\/em> great literature?<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Opinions vary sharply about this question. \u00a0In the Middle East itself, the literary elites have tended to think that they aren\u2019t, that they\u2019re merely folktales, and have typically ignored them \u2014 although that attitude seem to have shifted in recent decades. \u00a0It\u2019s analogous, perhaps, to the neglect shown by traditional Arab grammarians, lexicographers, and philologists toward the spoken Arabic dialects, collectively called \u2018ammiyya<\/em>, that are actually spoken on the street (by everybody, at all socio-economic levels). \u00a0These vernacular dialects vary widely from Morocco to Egypt, and from the Levant to Iraq. \u00a0But traditional scholars have long focused exclusively, or almost so, on the classical language of elite educated writing that is known as fu\u1e63\u1e25\u00e1.<\/i> \u00a0A friend of mine, reporting on his research into terms of personal address in Egyptian colloquial at a prestigious gathering in Cairo many years ago, actually received an angry response from some in his audience. \u00a0They demanded to know why he was studying the language of the streets and the gutters rather than that of the Qur\u2019an and great literature \u2014 and, ironically, their objections were themselves voiced in Egyptian colloquial. \u00a0But this attitude, too, seems to be changing.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
As to the literary merits of the Nights<\/em>, though, these are definitely mixed, as is the collection itself. \u00a0The original Arabic manuscripts, for example, are studded \u2014 or, some might say, littered \u2014 by hundreds of poems that most translators have dismissed as largely mediocre. \u00a0In fact, most translators have tended to omit them because they often interrupt the flow of the narrative.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Another way of judging the literary quality of the Nights<\/em>, however, might be to consider their influence and their readership, which have been enormous and diverse. \u00a0What child hasn\u2019t grown up hearing \u2014 or watching movies and videos \u2014 about Sindbad, Ali Baba, and Aladdin? \u00a0About genies and magic lamps? \u00a0Who doesn\u2019t recognize the command \u201cOpen, sesame!\u201d<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Hollywood has certainly paid attention, too, since well before the 1940 Thief of Baghdad<\/em> and continuing through Disney\u2019s 1992 animated Aladdin<\/em>, its two direct-to-video sequels, the animated television series Aladdin<\/em> that derived from it, and its 2019 live-action remake of the same name.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
But the Nights<\/em> have permeated high Western culture, as well. \u00a0In classical music, for instance, among many other instances that might be mentioned, Carl Maria von Weber (Abu Hassan<\/em>, 1811), Luigi Cherubini (Ali Baba<\/em>, 1833), Robert Schumann (Scheherazade<\/em>, 1848), Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (Scheherazade<\/em>, 1888), and Carl Nielsen (Aladdin Suite<\/em>, 1918-1919) have devoted significant works to stories from the Arabian Nights<\/em>. \u00a0In western literature, such varied authors as W. B. Yeats, Goethe, Jorge Luis Borges, Flaubert, Stendhal, Dumas, Hofmannsthal, and Tolstoy, H. P. Lovecraft, and Proust have been influenced by them.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Posted from Canmore, Alberta, Canada<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 Are the Arabian Nights great literature? \u00a0 Opinions vary sharply about this question. \u00a0In the Middle East itself, the literary elites have tended to think that they aren\u2019t, that they\u2019re merely folktales, and have typically ignored them \u2014 although that attitude seem to have shifted in recent decades. \u00a0It\u2019s analogous, perhaps, to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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