See also: Thousand and One Nights (homonymy)
Thousand and One Nights are a collection of Arab tales of inspiration Perse ( Kitāb 'Alf Layla wa-Layla , هزارویکشب Hezār-o Yak Šab in Persan).
Origins of work
At the origin, at the 8th-9th centuries, a Persan book entitled Hezar Afsane or Thousand Legends which was translated into Arabic and took the title of Thousand and One Nights (rear RTL كتابألفليلةوليلة Elf leïla wa leïla ). The Persian work, which raised of the kind “mirror of the princes”, contained probably exemplary accounts and was intended for the education of controlling. It did not belong to a popular literature or the folklore and had the same statute as the collection of animalist fables Kalila and Dimna (for example). Only, beside account-tallies which remained stable (the history of Shahrazâd, which frames all the others), the remainder of the tales changed considerably (as the Persan title besides) and a new matter was introduced there. These tales were then diffused in Europe.
Translation of Antoine Galland
The first French translation is the work of Antoine Galland published 1704 with 1717, but a part was written by itself, while taking as a starting point the accounts which its Syrian assessor had told to him. To make take body and spirit with the character of Shéhérazade, this antique dealer of the king (then Arab professor of language at the Collège de France) took as a starting point Madam d' Aulnoy and of the marchioness of O, rams palate of the duchess of Burgundy. According to Abdelfattah Kilito, this compilation of anonymous accounts does not fill any the traditional criteria Arab literature: a noble style, a precise author and a fixed form (and due in occident one always confuses the Arab Persia and cultures because of writing); moreover it puts forward many particularisms and dialects local, quite far away from the horizon of the letters, which leaves think that if Galland had not transmitted this memory, it would have been irremediably lost in the night of disappeared cultural works.
Translation of Mardrus
Having known the altered and reduced translation erotic elements, Doctor Mardrus, friend of Gide published a new enchanter translation of the Thousand and One Nights . Proust for example evokes his/her mother who does not dare to deprive it of the translation of Mardrus all while advising to him to stick to that of Galland.
Accounts
Thousand and One Nights are a complex whole of tales imbricated one in another, and characters out of mirror the ones compared to the others, which gives several reading levels possible.The Shâriyâr sultan, disappointed by the inaccuracy of his wife, makes it put at death, and in order to avoid being again ridiculed, it decides to assassinate each morning the woman whom it will have married the day before. Shéhérazade, the girl of the top dog, goes then voluntary to marry the sultan and, by the fact even, to put an end to the massacre: skilful narrator, each night, it tells with the sultan a fragment of history whose continuation is deferred to the following day. The caliph whose curiosity is excited cannot be solved to kill the young woman; he defers the execution of day in day in order to know the continuation of the account begun the day before. Little by little, Shéhérazade gains the confidence of her husband…
In fact, today, Nights are constituted of core fixed, about thirty stories (account-tallies it or the history of Shahrazâd, the merchant and the genius, the fisherman and the genius, the ladies of Baghdad, the three apples, the uneven one, and the stories which are included there) and of a whole of extremely varied accounts which concern as well the erudite literature as of a “popular” literature more. One meets there for example Jinn S, éfrit S and Goule S. But if it were necessary to characterize the Nuits , they would have to be associated with the hundreds other collections of tales of the same kind which were in circulation in the Arab field (the Nuits are not naturally an isolated book) and which belongs so that would have to be called an average literature.
Some tales of the Thousand and One Nights among most known (some do not result from oldest known manuscripts, but were added thereafter. It is the case of the 7 voyages of Sindbad the sailor, Ali Baba, Aladdin and the marvellous lamp.):
- Agîb and Gharîb (n° 13)
- Aladdin and the marvellous lamp (n°19)
- Ali Baba and the forty robbers ( Ali Baba goes tshehel dozde baghdad ) (n°24)
- Jullanâr or Badr Bâsim (n° 73)
- History of Qamar az-Zamân (n°120)
- History of the ebony horse (n° 130)
- the Al-Ma' Marriage mûn (n° 142)
- History envieux and envied (n° 158)
- the Tale of Ayyûb it Merchant, of his Ghânim son and his daughter Fitna (n°188)
- the Epopee of Umar year-Nu' mân (n° 277)
- Tricks of the women (n° 331)
- Sinbad the Sailor (n°373)
- the magic Horse
- the Tale of the two viziers and of Anise Al-Jalîs
- the Tale of the fisherman and the demon
- the Tale of the tailor, of uneven, the Jew, the Intendant and the Christian (who is held with Kachgar)
- the Tale of vizier Nûr AD-DIN and of his/her brother Shams AD-DIN
- history of Prince Ahmed and the fairy Bet-Banou
- Kamaralzamân and the princess Boudour
- Khalife and Khalifat
- the Damsel, lieutenante of the birds
- the Merchant and the Demon
- Portefaix and the three Ladies
- the Seven viziers
At the end of the book, the sultan realizes that during almost the three passed years, Schéhérazade also made him three beautiful children, and gives up for this reason making it carry out.
Success
The audience of the book was immediate in Europe, and quickly became the object of study and a success of the chapbooks. The writers of the 19th century, enfiévrés of the East, made their book of bedside of it. Janin, filled with enthusiasm, said that its reading concerned a “patriotic act almost”. Later, the book became one of the first titles with success of the collections Hachette and the station newsstand.1898 with 1904, Joseph-Charles Mardrus left a more erotic version there, emphasizing the transgressions and the ellipses in love nesting in the initial text with Galland.
Many illustrators adapted Thousand and One Nights, like the French Gustave Doré, Roger Blachon, Francoise Boudignon, André Dahan, Amato Soro, Albert Robida and Marcelino Truong, the English William Blake, the Italian Emanuele Luzzati, the German Morgan, the Belgian Carl Norac and the Turkish Emre Orhun.
In the versions published in the Arab countries, with Shéhérazade is assistant a male narrator, to restore the balance of the sexes and to reduce the attack with the authority of the sultan, so skilfully circumvented by the malignity of the young woman.
This characteristic is found, in the same way, in the series of cartoons “Shéhérazade” (52 26 minutes episodes), realized by Philippe Mest, where the young woman trains a team with a supernatural being, the éfrit Till , and a young Persan prince, Nour , with which it is in love.
Illustrations
; By the Persan painter Sani ol-Molk (1849-1856)| Random links: | Compression of sounds | Tamerza | Squadron 630 Beauport Rotary drill | Mara (area) | Plan of Ayutla |