Taking into account the sources of the Thousand and One Nights before the publication of the Arabic editions of Calcutta (1814–1818 and 1839–1842) and Būlāq (1835), we can conclude that the narrative material relating to the Nights or, similarly, the Arabian Nights, was in circulation throughout medieval times. This material amounted, to a wide and varied degree, to a rich source that added tremendously to what has been studied until now. (See, for example, the index of the Arabic manuscripts by Ibrahim Akel and the Turkish manuscripts by Delio Proverbio). In fact, the ‘book’ of The Thousand and One Nights belongs to an even larger collection of literally hundreds of unpublished texts that are connected to a specific movement of medieval literary creativity. This collection does not fall within the ‘popular literature’ category nor into a scholarly canon. It takes its place more accurately within a literature identified by Aboubakr Chraïbi (1993, 1998, 2008, 2016) as a middle literature. This category (genre?) of literature circulated widely in medieval times, and especially within the Arabic sector where it first surfaced with the appearance of the “Nights” in the Arabic-speaking world of the mid-eighth century. This is clearly evidenced by the [subsequent] Syrian, Egyptian, and Maghrebi manuscripts which produced a variety of versions and variants. Moreover, the ‘Nights’ expanded beyond Arabic and seeped into other languages, especially Turkish, with more than twenty Turkish manuscripts of the Thousand and One Nights produced, then eventually making its way into European languages and cultures. The [transmission] of ‘The Nights,’ as we now know, left its mark on authors such as Petrus Alphonsi (1062–1140) and Giovanni Boccaccio (1313–1375). And, long before the publication of Antoine Galland’s French translation in 1704, which had a monumental impact on French literature, even contributing to the creation of a new literary genre, the ‘oriental tale,’ to which Voltaire makes reference in the introduction to his Zadiq ou la Destinée (1747), echoes of the frame story of the Thousand and One Nights, and more exactly the Hundred and One Nights, had already reached Italy via Giovanni Sercambi’s Novella d’Astolfo (c. 1400) and with Ludovico Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso (1532).
Literary works with many textual sources, which have been transformed, much translated, and exercised a wide influence, such as the Thousand and One Nights, create dense and fluid textual networks. What must we have read, seen, or heard to claim to know the Nights? The oldest and most comprehensive Arabic manuscript? The Būlāq or Mahdi edition? Burton or Haddawy’s translations? Poe’s short story? Rabaud’s opera? Mahfouz’s novel? Borges’s essays? Pasolini’s film? Materials related to the Nights continue to emerge from many arts, countries, periods, disciplines, and languages, and their scope continues to widen, making the Nights a universal work from every point of view.
The simultaneous transformations of the Thousand and One Nights and their environments often introduce new forms of interaction and promote the creation of new cultural objects and new research perspectives. From the nineteenth century onwards, short stories and novels would gradually dominate the various forms of literary production, while, during this time, the Nights would be revitalized with new editions (Būlāq, Calcutta I and II, Breslau, etc.) and with new translations (Lane, Burton, Mardrus, and so forth). Always a publishing staple, the Nights would gradually enter world literature through the great novel as the vehicle of transmission of the day, from Argentina to Japan, but also other arts, such as music and cinema from its earliest days (Méliès, 1905; Reiniger, 1926). Another remarkable transformation relates to contemporary society, namely the birth of several scientific disciplines, the innovation of new research tools, and the cross-pollination of interdisciplinary approaches to sociology, history, anthropology, psychoanalysis, and political philosophy, all of which have adopted the Nights in some way as a reference corpus.
This volume traverses various aspects of the dense textual network referenced above. It is divided into four sections. The first section consists of four chapters that revolve around the study of ‘sources’ and manuscript copies of the Thousand and One Nights. Ulrich Marzolph investigates the contribution of Muḥammad Ibn ʿAbd al-Muʿṭī al-Isḥāqī’s Laṭāʾif aḥbār al-uwal (Book of Subtle Stories from the Forefathers) to the collection of the Nights: Johannes Thomann undertakes a ‘reshaping’ of the Nights’ frame story drawing from the earliest existing manuscripts employed by Galland and Kayseri; Ahmed Saidy surveys the Arabian Nights manuscripts preserved in the Moroccan archives; and Ibrahim Akel examines a recently discovered unknown manuscript of James Anderson.
The second section revisits the Galland translation of 1704 and the transformations the publication of this book have registered in France since the eighteenth century. It also considers how a European reading public viewed this book in terms of ‘literary genre.’ Anne E. Duggan examines how Galland’s translation influenced the fields of literature and philosophy in the age of French Enlightenment and how it may have altered the concept of ‘story’ as well. Arafat Razzaque’s chapter, meanwhile, probes the roles of print culture and authorship in his reading of L’affaire du Tome VIII.
The third section comprises articles that situate the Nights and its vast influence in the contexts of ‘comparative’ and ‘world’ literature[s]. Abdelfattah Kilito traces a connection between the Night’s tale, ‘Two Dreamers’, and Balzac’s Eugénie Grandet; meanwhile Rafika Hammoudi considers the Nights’ influences on Rimbaud’s Illuminations. Michael Lundell casts new light upon the sources Richard Burton drew upon in his translations of the Night’s poetry. William Granara provides a reading of two love stories in the Nights, as reworkings of the Arabian sacred and profane ġazal. Adam Mestyan exposes images of the character of Hārūn al-Rašīd in pioneering works of the early Arabic theatre. Magdalena Kubarek traces the presence of Scheherazade in contemporary Polish literature and culture. Marina Paino examines the influence of the Nights upon works of modern literature and film. Finally, Ilaria Vitalia argues for the inspiration of the Thousand and One Nights on Michel Ocelet’s vast literary and theatrical production.
The fourth, and final, section contains chapters devoted to numerous functions and reworkings of the Thousand and One Nights in the contemporary humanities and sciences. Rasoul Aliakbari analyzes the publication of the Arabian Nights against the background of the evolving concept of nationhood in pre-Civil War America. Daniel Behar’s reading of Jacqueline Kahanoff’s essay on the Arabian Nights captures the connection between the technique of embeddedness found in Scheherazade’s storytelling and actual political realities of Kahanoff’s time and place. Dominique Jullien discusses the pedagogical and moral dimensions of the tales by tracing the motif of healing as connectors of the individual story to the frame story. And finally, Eyüp Özveren identifies economic representations and their association with economic analysis in the Nights.
In sum this volume sets its sights on scrutinizing the expanse of sources for this monumental work of Arabic literature, in all of their static and dynamic complexity. It also follows the trajectory of the Nights’ texts and their creative scholarly commentaries, their productive encounter with all that followed the French translation in the eighteenth century, and their developments and relationships with the arts and sciences.
Ibrahim Akel and William Granara