Longtime Nights admirer and writer who can hold his own just fine Jorge Luis Borges speaks about El Libro de las mil y una noches. This 40+ minute recording is part of a series of lectures he gave on literature in 1977 (en Spanish):
Showing posts with label lectures. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lectures. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
Jorge Luis Borges - El Libro de las mil y una noches
Longtime Nights admirer and writer who can hold his own just fine Jorge Luis Borges speaks about El Libro de las mil y una noches. This 40+ minute recording is part of a series of lectures he gave on literature in 1977 (en Spanish):
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Historical Background of the Nights
Here is a recent (April 2011) lecture I just chanced upon while procrastinating online, it is by John Curry from the University of Nevada Reno and is on teaching the 1001 Nights, though it is largely a historical background of the end of the Sasanid Empire and the Abbasid Caliphate in Baghdad.
I tried to save the audio to my computer but haven't figured out how to yet. As for now the lecture is up on the digital commons page at UNLV:
http://digitalcommons.library.unlv.edu/english_lectures_events/11/
I tried to save the audio to my computer but haven't figured out how to yet. As for now the lecture is up on the digital commons page at UNLV:
http://digitalcommons.library.unlv.edu/english_lectures_events/11/
Friday, March 13, 2009
upcoming paper at the annual AOS meeting
The American Oriental Society is holding their annual meeting at the moment in New Mexico and there is one paper being read about the Arabian Nights and poetry (the only paper on the Nights at this year's meeting). It is an interesting subject I've not read much about. I'm under the impression that Muhsin Mahdi excised poetry from his reproduction of Galland's Arabic manuscript though I'm not sure to what extent.
This paper is about the relationship of the Classical poetry that the first and subsequent Arabic authors/compilers of the Nights "pasted" and wrote amongst the prose.
PDF of Abstracts (Arabian Nights is on page 27):
http://www.umich.edu/~aos/2009/Abstracts2009Full.pdf
Paper will be presented Saturday Morning as part of the meeting of the "New Readings of Classical Arabic Literature" from 1030-1210pm in Alvarado G-H.
Quoted Abstract:
"Wolfhart Heinrichs, Harvard University
- Modes of Existence of Poetry in the Arabian Nights
The Arabian Nights are an example of prosimetrum (prose interspersed with poetry), a literary phenomenon that has only recently attracted the attention of Arabists. The paper will dwell on some features that are characteristic of the role of poetry in Alf Laylah wa-Laylah: (1) The poems have been compared by John Payne, the 19th century translator of Alf Laylah, to woodcuts in Western publications. Unlike the woodcuts, the poems are, of course, in the same medium as the narrative; however, often they are quotations of classical poetry and, thus, in the Classical language rather than in the "Middle Arabic" of the narrative, which makes the parallelism between Alf Laylah poems and woodcuts somewhat stronger. The remaining poems are presumable mostly composed by storytellers and/or copyists; nonetheless, they still predominantly follow the classical language and prosody. Only a few are "beyond repair." (b) Most poems are adduced according to Bencheikh's rule: "If the story narrates a passion, the poem represents it." In some cases the poem is introduced by a formula that identifies the situation described in the prose with the description of the poem. E.g., the description of a hunchback is preceded by kama qala fihi badu wasifihi, as if the quoted poem had been written about the hunchback in the story. The strangest stratagem in this category is the lisan al-hal, the "voice of the situation," which is used, when the protagonists cannot speak, but the situation cries out for a poem; the lisan al-hal is presented as "writing" and "speaking" the poem (kataba lisanu halina yaqul). Thus the insertion of poems often betrays great sophistication. The storytellers and/or copyists may even manipulate the slots for poems, and certainly the slot-fillers, as the various text traditions clearly show."
This paper is about the relationship of the Classical poetry that the first and subsequent Arabic authors/compilers of the Nights "pasted" and wrote amongst the prose.
PDF of Abstracts (Arabian Nights is on page 27):
http://www.umich.edu/~aos/2009/Abstracts2009Full.pdf
Paper will be presented Saturday Morning as part of the meeting of the "New Readings of Classical Arabic Literature" from 1030-1210pm in Alvarado G-H.
Quoted Abstract:
"Wolfhart Heinrichs, Harvard University
- Modes of Existence of Poetry in the Arabian Nights
The Arabian Nights are an example of prosimetrum (prose interspersed with poetry), a literary phenomenon that has only recently attracted the attention of Arabists. The paper will dwell on some features that are characteristic of the role of poetry in Alf Laylah wa-Laylah: (1) The poems have been compared by John Payne, the 19th century translator of Alf Laylah, to woodcuts in Western publications. Unlike the woodcuts, the poems are, of course, in the same medium as the narrative; however, often they are quotations of classical poetry and, thus, in the Classical language rather than in the "Middle Arabic" of the narrative, which makes the parallelism between Alf Laylah poems and woodcuts somewhat stronger. The remaining poems are presumable mostly composed by storytellers and/or copyists; nonetheless, they still predominantly follow the classical language and prosody. Only a few are "beyond repair." (b) Most poems are adduced according to Bencheikh's rule: "If the story narrates a passion, the poem represents it." In some cases the poem is introduced by a formula that identifies the situation described in the prose with the description of the poem. E.g., the description of a hunchback is preceded by kama qala fihi badu wasifihi, as if the quoted poem had been written about the hunchback in the story. The strangest stratagem in this category is the lisan al-hal, the "voice of the situation," which is used, when the protagonists cannot speak, but the situation cries out for a poem; the lisan al-hal is presented as "writing" and "speaking" the poem (kataba lisanu halina yaqul). Thus the insertion of poems often betrays great sophistication. The storytellers and/or copyists may even manipulate the slots for poems, and certainly the slot-fillers, as the various text traditions clearly show."
Sunday, January 25, 2009
call for papers - mla 2009
The MLA conference this year has a call for papers which mentions the Nights.
I'll see what I can cook up before the March 1 deadline although it centers on European Medieval Lit.
Here is the entire posting:
Subject: Call for Papers: Islamic Genealogies
Palimpsest: Islamic Genealogies of Medieval European Literature
Was Chaucer’s Parliament of Fowles a late manifestation of Attar’s work, Boccaccio’s Decameron of One Thousand and One Nights , or Dante’s epic of Muhammad’s Mi`raj? Comparatist reevaluations of literary antecedents.
Abstracts by 1 Mar to ck50@columbia.edu
I'll see what I can cook up before the March 1 deadline although it centers on European Medieval Lit.
Here is the entire posting:
Subject: Call for Papers: Islamic Genealogies
Palimpsest: Islamic Genealogies of Medieval European Literature
Was Chaucer’s Parliament of Fowles a late manifestation of Attar’s work, Boccaccio’s Decameron of One Thousand and One Nights , or Dante’s epic of Muhammad’s Mi`raj? Comparatist reevaluations of literary antecedents.
Abstracts by 1 Mar to ck50@columbia.edu
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
1001 Nights & Goethe Lecture in London - Dec 3, 2008
12/01/08
Lecture in London: Goethe and 1001 Nights
Lecture in London by Professor Katharina Mommsen of Stanford University
3 December 2008
7:00 pm
Lecture hall G3 (ground floor)
School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS)
10 Thornhaugh Street, London WC1H 0XG
Organisation:
SOAS Near & Middle Eastern Department and Iran Heritage Foundation
Introduction:
It has been rightly said that, with the exception of the Bible, few books exist which have so widely circulated through the Western world since the 18th century as the collection of narratives from the Near and Middle East known under the name of 1001 Nights. A substantial part of the tales in the 1001 Nights can be traced back to Sassanian and Pahlavi sources like Hezar Afsan. Hardly anyone in the Western world has not at least once in life read these stories with pleasure and interest and is indebted to them for a host of many colored, fairy-like impressions. The 1001 Nights had also indirect effect through Western writers because its narrative power and incomparable abundance of motifs and figures of fantasy influenced their writings. For centuries, numerous writers of Western nations have received inspiration from this Eastern collection of narratives and have borrowed thematic materials for their novels, dramas, operas, poetic works, screen plays, movies, ballets, and TV shows. Thus the 1001 Nights have become one of the inexhaustible fountain-heads of the arts. There is still a lot of comparative literary work to be done to reveal the immense impact of the Eastern art of story telling on Western writers through this collection which was translated in almost every language. Here a fertile field for research still exists. Katharina Mommsen's lecture will give an example of the creative influence which the 1001 Nights exercised upon Germany's greatest poet and writer Goethe (1749-1832), particularly on the 2nd part of his best known masterpiece Faust.
About the speaker:
Katharina Mommsen is Professor emerita (Endowed Chair of Literature) at Stanford University, California. She was born in Berlin and educated at the Universities of Berlin, Freiburg, Mainz, and Tübingen where she received her PhD in 1956. She began her academic career at the age of 24 as a Goethe researcher at the German Academy of Sciences in Berlin and started her teaching career at the Free University of Berlin in 1962, held guest professorships at the University of Gießen, the Technische Universität Berlin, the State University of New York at Buffalo, Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, the University of California at San Diego. She received, among other awards, a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship, a Research Prize of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, an Order of Merit First Class of the Federal Republic of Germany, the Golden Goethe Medal of the International Goethe Society in Weimar. She is an Honorary Member of the American Association of Teachers of German, Honorary Fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Association of America, a Corresponding Member of the Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung in Darmstadt, of the Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen, the Berliner Wissenschaftliche Gesellschaft, and the University of London School of Advanced Study, Katharina Mommsen is the author of over 120 publications, including a dozen books about Goethe (including Goethe und 1001 Nacht, Goethe und die arabische Welt, Goethe und der Islam)
Admission:
Free
Date and Time:
3 December 2008, 7:00 pm
Venue:
Lecture hall G3 (ground floor)
School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS)
10 Thornhaugh Street
London WC1H 0XG
Enquiries:
Dr Nima Mina, nima.mina@soas.ac.uk
Lecture in London: Goethe and 1001 Nights
Lecture in London by Professor Katharina Mommsen of Stanford University
3 December 2008
7:00 pm
Lecture hall G3 (ground floor)
School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS)
10 Thornhaugh Street, London WC1H 0XG
Organisation:
SOAS Near & Middle Eastern Department and Iran Heritage Foundation
Introduction:
It has been rightly said that, with the exception of the Bible, few books exist which have so widely circulated through the Western world since the 18th century as the collection of narratives from the Near and Middle East known under the name of 1001 Nights. A substantial part of the tales in the 1001 Nights can be traced back to Sassanian and Pahlavi sources like Hezar Afsan. Hardly anyone in the Western world has not at least once in life read these stories with pleasure and interest and is indebted to them for a host of many colored, fairy-like impressions. The 1001 Nights had also indirect effect through Western writers because its narrative power and incomparable abundance of motifs and figures of fantasy influenced their writings. For centuries, numerous writers of Western nations have received inspiration from this Eastern collection of narratives and have borrowed thematic materials for their novels, dramas, operas, poetic works, screen plays, movies, ballets, and TV shows. Thus the 1001 Nights have become one of the inexhaustible fountain-heads of the arts. There is still a lot of comparative literary work to be done to reveal the immense impact of the Eastern art of story telling on Western writers through this collection which was translated in almost every language. Here a fertile field for research still exists. Katharina Mommsen's lecture will give an example of the creative influence which the 1001 Nights exercised upon Germany's greatest poet and writer Goethe (1749-1832), particularly on the 2nd part of his best known masterpiece Faust.
About the speaker:
Katharina Mommsen is Professor emerita (Endowed Chair of Literature) at Stanford University, California. She was born in Berlin and educated at the Universities of Berlin, Freiburg, Mainz, and Tübingen where she received her PhD in 1956. She began her academic career at the age of 24 as a Goethe researcher at the German Academy of Sciences in Berlin and started her teaching career at the Free University of Berlin in 1962, held guest professorships at the University of Gießen, the Technische Universität Berlin, the State University of New York at Buffalo, Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, the University of California at San Diego. She received, among other awards, a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship, a Research Prize of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, an Order of Merit First Class of the Federal Republic of Germany, the Golden Goethe Medal of the International Goethe Society in Weimar. She is an Honorary Member of the American Association of Teachers of German, Honorary Fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Association of America, a Corresponding Member of the Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung in Darmstadt, of the Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen, the Berliner Wissenschaftliche Gesellschaft, and the University of London School of Advanced Study, Katharina Mommsen is the author of over 120 publications, including a dozen books about Goethe (including Goethe und 1001 Nacht, Goethe und die arabische Welt, Goethe und der Islam)
Admission:
Free
Date and Time:
3 December 2008, 7:00 pm
Venue:
Lecture hall G3 (ground floor)
School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS)
10 Thornhaugh Street
London WC1H 0XG
Enquiries:
Dr Nima Mina, nima.mina@soas.ac.uk
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Margaret Larkin Lecture / Reading Dec 6
Professor Larkin teaches at UC Berkeley and will be giving a talk/lecture/reading on the Nights there on Dec 6, 2008.
More info on their website, which I've pasted most of below:
http://orias.berkeley.edu/2009/1001Nights.htm
TOPIC: 1001 Nights
SPEAKER: Margaret Larkin, Professor of Arabic Literature, Dept. of Near Eastern Studies, UCB
WHERE: 2223 Fulton Street, 6th floor - U. C. Berkeley
WHEN: Saturday, December 6, 2008 - 10:00AM - 1:00PM
Registration required - space is limited.
READING (from Payne translation - Prof. Larkin notes that the Husain Haddawy translation is far superior and I will distribute it at the session - Michele):
Frame prologue and Tale of Ox and Donkey (8 pages)
http://orias.berkeley.edu/2009/Payne_FramePlusOx&Ass.pdf
Merchant and the Genie (7 pages)
http://orias.berkeley.edu/2009/Payne_Merchant&Demon.pdf
The First Old Man’s Story
The Second Old Man’s Story
The Third Old Man’s Story
The Fisherman and the Genie (21 pages)
http://orias.berkeley.edu/2009/Payne_Fisherman.pdf
Story of the Physician Douban
Story of King Sindead and His Falcon
Story of the King’s Son and the Ogress
Story of the Enchanted Youth
The Porter and the Three Ladies of Baghdad (50 pages)
The First Calender’s Story
The Second Calender’s Story
Story of the Envier and the Envied
The Third Calender’s Story
The Eldest Lady’s Story
The Story of the Portess
A brief timeline 1001 Nights and other story collections and events on the trade routes. (Delattre)
It is important to keep in mind that these collections of stories-within-stories are intimately connected to the oral tradition and are continually changing and swapping stories in between their “fixed” appearances in print.
6th century BC Aesop lives in ancient Greece (according to Herodotus)
5th century BC: Oldest surviving version of the Jataka (tales about Buddha’s many incarnations, some in non-human form).
1st century CE Latin translation of Aesop's Fables
5th century? Panchatantra (“Five Books”- animal fables) composed in Sanskrit no later than the 5th century with roots in oral tradition.
The Jataka, Panchatantra, and Aesop all share some stories. Where the folktales originated and how they traveled is debated.
c550 Persian version of Panchatantra
c750 Arabic translation from Persian Panchatantra published under title Kalila wa Dimna (which in turn becomes the source for nearly all versions circulated in medieval Europe as Fables of Bidpai.)
750 Beginning of Abbasid dynasty of caliphs. (Map of Abbasid Caliphate and fragmentation, 786 to 1194)
762-6 Baghdad is founded and becomes Abbasid capital. (Map of Abbasid Caliphate 786-809)
786 to 809 Reign of Hārūn al-Rashīd, the most famous Abbasid Caliph (appears as idealized character in 1001 Nights).
8th or early 9th
century Arabic translation of Persian Hazar Afsana ("A Thousand Tales") - Hazar Afsana considered the source of the Arabic title Alf Layla wa-Layla ("Thousand nights and one night") and frame story of Shahrazad and Shahrayar and division into nights. Arab stories are added.
1099 First Crusade begins rule in Jerusalem.
c. 1160 Lais of Marie de France
13th c Syrian and Egyptian stories are added.
1258 Mongols sack Baghdad.
1300s Earliest example of the Syrian branch of the surviving Nights manuscripts is written.
1354 Boccaccio’s Decameron
1387 Chaucer begins Canterbury Tales
1403 Gutenberg Press version of Panchatantra under the title, Buch der Beyspiele (book of examples).
1697 Perrault publishes Mother Goose (Les Contes de ma Mère l'Oie) introducing fairy tales as genre
1704-1717 Galland’s French translation, Les Mille it une nuits . First large set of tales brought to W. Europe.
1798-1801 French occupation of Egypt.
1812 Grimms' Fairy Tales published
1838-1841
First publication of Edward Lane's English translation - The Arabian Nights Entertainments
(Mary Zimmerman's source for Arabian Nights?)
1855-8 Sir Richard Francis Burton’s English translation - Arabian Nights Entertainments
1882-1884 John Payne's English translation Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night (nine volumes)
1898 Andrew Lang's The Arabian Nights (juvenile edition based on Galland)
1901 John Payne, The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night.
1978 Albert B. Lord’s Singer of Tales – Study of oral tradition.
1979 Edward Said's Orientalism - Critique of the West's romanticizing of the "exotic" Orient (Asia and the Middle East)
1984 Mahdi’s critical edition of Alf Layla wa-Layla.
1990 Husain Haddawy's English translation (The Arabian Nights) from Muhsin Mahdi 1984 Arabic version
1992 Disney's film, Aladdin
2000 Hallmark TV miniseries Arabian Nights
Sample translations of the Fisherman's Tale opening: (For complete texts and references see the bibliography links below.)
Lane: Third Night
There was a certain fisherman, advanced in age, who had a wife and three children; and though he was in indigent circumstances, it was his custom to cast his net, every day, no more than four times. One day he went forth at the hour of noon to the shore of the sea, and put down his basket, and cast his net, and waited until it was motionless in the water, when he drew together its strings, and found it to be heavy: he pulled, but could not draw it up: so he took the end of the cord, and knocked a stake into the shore, and tied the cord to it. He then stripped himself, and dived round the net, and continued to pull until he drew it out: whereupon he rejoiced, and put on his clothes; but when he came to examine the net, he found in it the carcass of an ass. At the sight of this he mourned, and exclaimed, There is no strength nor power but in God, the High, the Great! This is a strange piece of fortune! —And he repeated the following verse: —
O thou who occupiest thyself in the darkness of night, and in peril!
Spare thy trouble; for the support of Providence is not obtained by toil!
Burton: Chapter III
It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that there was a Fisherman well stricken in years who had a wife and three children, and withal was of poor condition. Now it was his custom to cast his net every day four times, and no more. On a day he went forth about noontide to the sea shore, where he laid down his basket; and, tucking up his shirt and plunging into the water, made a cast with his net and waited till it settled to the bottom. Then he gathered the cords together and haled away at it, but found it weighty; and however much he drew it landwards, he could not pull it up; so he carried the ends ashore and drove a stake into the ground and made the net fast to it. Then he stripped and dived into the water all about the net, and left not off working hard until he had brought it up. He rejoiced thereat and, donning his clothes, went to the net, when he found in it a dead jackass which had torn the meshes. Now when he saw it, he exclaimed in his grief, "There is no Majesty, and there is no Might save in Allah the Glorious, the Great!" Then quoth he, "This is a strange manner of daily bread;" and he began re citing in extempore verse:--
O toiler through the glooms of night in peril and in pain
Thy toiling stint for daily bread comes not by might and main!
Seest thou not the fisher seek afloat upon the sea
His bread, while glimmer stars of night as set in tangled skein.
Anon he plungeth in despite the buffet of the waves
The while to sight the bellying net his eager glances strain;
Till joying at the night's success, a fish he bringeth home
Whose gullet by the hook of Fate was caught and cut in twain.
When buys that fish of him a man who spent the hours of night
Reckless of cold and wet and gloom in ease and comfort fain,
Laud to the Lord who gives to this, to that denies his wishes
And dooms one toil and catch the prey and other eat the fishes.
Payne: Third Night
There was once a poor fisherman, who was getting on in years and had a wife and three children; and it was his custom every day to cast his net four times and no more. One day he went out at the hour of noon and repaired to the sea-shore, where he set down his basket and tucked up his skirts and plunging into the sea, cast his net and waited till it had settled down in the water. Then he gathered the cords in his hand and found it heavy and pulled at it, but could not bring it up. So he carried the end of the cords ashore and drove in a stake, to which he made them fast. Then he stripped and diving round the net, tugged at it till he brought it ashore. Whereat he rejoiced and landing, put on his clothes; but when he came to examine the net, he found in it a dead ass; and the net was torn. When he saw this, he was vexed and said: 'There is no power and no virtue save in God the Most High, the Supreme! This is indeed strange luck!' And he repeated the following verses:
O thou that strivest in the gloom of darkness and distress, Cut short thine efforts, for in strife alone lies not success! Seest not the fisherman that seeks his living in the sea, Midmost the network of the stars that round about him press! Up to his midst he plunges in: the billows buffet him; But from the bellying net his eyes cease not in watchfulness; Till when, contented with his night, he carries home a fish, Whose throat the hand of Death hath slit with trident pitiless, Comes one who buys his prey of him, one who has passed the night, Safe from the cold, in all delight of peace and blessedness. Praise be to God who gives to this and cloth to that deny! Some fish, and others eat the fish caught with such toil and stress.
Husain Haddawy: The Eight Night
It is related that there was a very old fisherman who had a wife and three daughters andwho was so poor that they did not have even enough food for the day. It was this fisherman’s custom to cast his net four times a day. One day, while the mon was still up, he went out with his net at the call for the ealy morning prayer. He reached the outskirts of the city and come to the seashore. Then he set down his basket,roled up his shirt, and waded to his waist in the water. He cast his net and waited for it to sink; then he gathered the rope and started to pull. As he pulled little by little, he felt that the net was getting heavier until he was unable to pull any further. He climbed ashore, drove a stake into the ground, and tied the end of the rope into he stake. Then he took off his clothes, dove into the water, and went around the net, shaking it and tugging at it until he managed to pull it ashore. Feeling extremely happy, he put on his clothes and went back to the net. But when he opened it, he found inside a dead donkey, which had torn it apart. The fisherman felt sad and depressed and said to himself, “There is no power and no strength save in God, the Almighty, the Magnificent,” adding, “Indeed, this is a strange catch!” Then he began to recite the following verses:
O you who brave the danger in the dark,
Reduce your toil, for gain is not in work.
Look at the fisherman who labors at his trade,
As the stars in the night their orbits make,
And deeply wades into the raging sea,
Steadily gazing at the swelling net,
Till he returns, pleased with his nightly catch,
A fish whose mouth the hook of death has cut,
And sells it to a man who sleeps the night,
Safe from the cold and blessed with every wish.
Praised be the Lord who blesses and withholds:
This casts the net, but that one eats the fish.
Lang: Chapter V
Sire, there was once upon a time a fisherman so old and so poor that he could scarcely manage to support his wife and three children. He went every day to fish very early, and each day he made a rule not to throw his nets more than four times. He started out one morning by moonlight and came to the sea-shore. He undressed and threw his nets, and as he was drawing them towards the bank he felt a great weight. He though he had caught a large fish, and he felt very pleased. But a moment afterwards, seeing that instead of a fish he only had in his nets the carcase of an ass, he was much disappointed.
McCaughrean: Chapter V
The fisherman was well known hereabouts (said Shahrazad) though I forget his exact name. He used to be a familiar sight on the beach, throwing his net into the surf to catch bass and mullet. He was almost as old as he was poor, but his faith and trust in Allah comforted him.
Arriving at the sea shore and starting to work, he looked at the sky and said:
'O Allah who sends some days red with mullet and others silver with bass and still more black with mud, is it to be a day of the third kind? My net is caught on the bottom, Allah."
When he finally dragged the net ashore, he found nothing in it but a dead donkey.
Husain Haddawy, trans. The Arabian Nights. WW. Norton & Co. , 1990 (Everyman's Library, 1992.)
Robert Irwin. The Arabian Nights, A Companion. First published by Penguin Press, 1994. Reprinted in 2005 by Tauris Parke Paperbacks.
Geraldine McCaughrean. One Thousand and One Arabian Nights. Oxford University Press, 1982. (Good middle school student version.)
Some relevant content standards for 1001 Nights:
7th grade H/SS:
7.2 Students analyze the geographic, political, economic, religious, and social structures of the civilizations of Islam in the Middle Ages.
5. Describe the growth of cities and the establishment of trade routes among Asia, Africa, and Europe, the products and inventions that traveled along these routes (e.g., spices, textiles, paper, steel, new crops), and the role of merchants in Arab society.
6. Understand the intellectual exchanges among Muslim scholars of Eurasia and Africa and the contributions Muslim scholars made to later civilizations in the areas of science, geography, mathematics, philosophy, medicine, art, and literature.
7.8 Students analyze the origins, accomplishments, and geographic diffusion of the Renaissance.
4. Describe the growth and effects of new ways of disseminating information (e.g., the ability to manufacture paper, translation of the Bible into the vernacular, printing).
7.11 Students analyze political and economic change in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries (the Age of Exploration, the Enlightenment, and the Age of Reason).
2. Discuss the exchanges of plants, animals, technology, culture, and ideas among Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and the major economic and social effects on each continent.
Language Arts – grades 11,12.
Literary Response and Analysis
3.6 Analyze the way in which authors through the centuries have used archetypes drawn from myth and tradition in literature, film, political speeches, and religious writings (e.g., how the archetypes of banishment from an ideal world may be used to interpret Shakespeare's tragedy Macbeth).
ORIAS Working Groups are established to provide professional development support for K-11 and community college teachers with shared interests in international studies. The working groups provide teachers with the opportunity to extend their content knowledge by participating in seminars with University scholars; meeting with colleagues to share resources and experiences; and working independently or collaboratively on classroom materials with ORIAS staff.
Co-sponsored by the Office of Resources for International and Area Studies (ORIAS), the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, and the Center for South Asia Studies at U. C. Berkeley, and the Institute of East Asian Studies.
More info on their website, which I've pasted most of below:
http://orias.berkeley.edu/2009/1001Nights.htm
TOPIC: 1001 Nights
SPEAKER: Margaret Larkin, Professor of Arabic Literature, Dept. of Near Eastern Studies, UCB
WHERE: 2223 Fulton Street, 6th floor - U. C. Berkeley
WHEN: Saturday, December 6, 2008 - 10:00AM - 1:00PM
Registration required - space is limited.
READING (from Payne translation - Prof. Larkin notes that the Husain Haddawy translation is far superior and I will distribute it at the session - Michele):
Frame prologue and Tale of Ox and Donkey (8 pages)
http://orias.berkeley.edu/2009/Payne_FramePlusOx&Ass.pdf
Merchant and the Genie (7 pages)
http://orias.berkeley.edu/2009/Payne_Merchant&Demon.pdf
The First Old Man’s Story
The Second Old Man’s Story
The Third Old Man’s Story
The Fisherman and the Genie (21 pages)
http://orias.berkeley.edu/2009/Payne_Fisherman.pdf
Story of the Physician Douban
Story of King Sindead and His Falcon
Story of the King’s Son and the Ogress
Story of the Enchanted Youth
The Porter and the Three Ladies of Baghdad (50 pages)
The First Calender’s Story
The Second Calender’s Story
Story of the Envier and the Envied
The Third Calender’s Story
The Eldest Lady’s Story
The Story of the Portess
A brief timeline 1001 Nights and other story collections and events on the trade routes. (Delattre)
It is important to keep in mind that these collections of stories-within-stories are intimately connected to the oral tradition and are continually changing and swapping stories in between their “fixed” appearances in print.
6th century BC Aesop lives in ancient Greece (according to Herodotus)
5th century BC: Oldest surviving version of the Jataka (tales about Buddha’s many incarnations, some in non-human form).
1st century CE Latin translation of Aesop's Fables
5th century? Panchatantra (“Five Books”- animal fables) composed in Sanskrit no later than the 5th century with roots in oral tradition.
The Jataka, Panchatantra, and Aesop all share some stories. Where the folktales originated and how they traveled is debated.
c550 Persian version of Panchatantra
c750 Arabic translation from Persian Panchatantra published under title Kalila wa Dimna (which in turn becomes the source for nearly all versions circulated in medieval Europe as Fables of Bidpai.)
750 Beginning of Abbasid dynasty of caliphs. (Map of Abbasid Caliphate and fragmentation, 786 to 1194)
762-6 Baghdad is founded and becomes Abbasid capital. (Map of Abbasid Caliphate 786-809)
786 to 809 Reign of Hārūn al-Rashīd, the most famous Abbasid Caliph (appears as idealized character in 1001 Nights).
8th or early 9th
century Arabic translation of Persian Hazar Afsana ("A Thousand Tales") - Hazar Afsana considered the source of the Arabic title Alf Layla wa-Layla ("Thousand nights and one night") and frame story of Shahrazad and Shahrayar and division into nights. Arab stories are added.
1099 First Crusade begins rule in Jerusalem.
c. 1160 Lais of Marie de France
13th c Syrian and Egyptian stories are added.
1258 Mongols sack Baghdad.
1300s Earliest example of the Syrian branch of the surviving Nights manuscripts is written.
1354 Boccaccio’s Decameron
1387 Chaucer begins Canterbury Tales
1403 Gutenberg Press version of Panchatantra under the title, Buch der Beyspiele (book of examples).
1697 Perrault publishes Mother Goose (Les Contes de ma Mère l'Oie) introducing fairy tales as genre
1704-1717 Galland’s French translation, Les Mille it une nuits . First large set of tales brought to W. Europe.
1798-1801 French occupation of Egypt.
1812 Grimms' Fairy Tales published
1838-1841
First publication of Edward Lane's English translation - The Arabian Nights Entertainments
(Mary Zimmerman's source for Arabian Nights?)
1855-8 Sir Richard Francis Burton’s English translation - Arabian Nights Entertainments
1882-1884 John Payne's English translation Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night (nine volumes)
1898 Andrew Lang's The Arabian Nights (juvenile edition based on Galland)
1901 John Payne, The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night.
1978 Albert B. Lord’s Singer of Tales – Study of oral tradition.
1979 Edward Said's Orientalism - Critique of the West's romanticizing of the "exotic" Orient (Asia and the Middle East)
1984 Mahdi’s critical edition of Alf Layla wa-Layla.
1990 Husain Haddawy's English translation (The Arabian Nights) from Muhsin Mahdi 1984 Arabic version
1992 Disney's film, Aladdin
2000 Hallmark TV miniseries Arabian Nights
Sample translations of the Fisherman's Tale opening: (For complete texts and references see the bibliography links below.)
Lane: Third Night
There was a certain fisherman, advanced in age, who had a wife and three children; and though he was in indigent circumstances, it was his custom to cast his net, every day, no more than four times. One day he went forth at the hour of noon to the shore of the sea, and put down his basket, and cast his net, and waited until it was motionless in the water, when he drew together its strings, and found it to be heavy: he pulled, but could not draw it up: so he took the end of the cord, and knocked a stake into the shore, and tied the cord to it. He then stripped himself, and dived round the net, and continued to pull until he drew it out: whereupon he rejoiced, and put on his clothes; but when he came to examine the net, he found in it the carcass of an ass. At the sight of this he mourned, and exclaimed, There is no strength nor power but in God, the High, the Great! This is a strange piece of fortune! —And he repeated the following verse: —
O thou who occupiest thyself in the darkness of night, and in peril!
Spare thy trouble; for the support of Providence is not obtained by toil!
Burton: Chapter III
It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that there was a Fisherman well stricken in years who had a wife and three children, and withal was of poor condition. Now it was his custom to cast his net every day four times, and no more. On a day he went forth about noontide to the sea shore, where he laid down his basket; and, tucking up his shirt and plunging into the water, made a cast with his net and waited till it settled to the bottom. Then he gathered the cords together and haled away at it, but found it weighty; and however much he drew it landwards, he could not pull it up; so he carried the ends ashore and drove a stake into the ground and made the net fast to it. Then he stripped and dived into the water all about the net, and left not off working hard until he had brought it up. He rejoiced thereat and, donning his clothes, went to the net, when he found in it a dead jackass which had torn the meshes. Now when he saw it, he exclaimed in his grief, "There is no Majesty, and there is no Might save in Allah the Glorious, the Great!" Then quoth he, "This is a strange manner of daily bread;" and he began re citing in extempore verse:--
O toiler through the glooms of night in peril and in pain
Thy toiling stint for daily bread comes not by might and main!
Seest thou not the fisher seek afloat upon the sea
His bread, while glimmer stars of night as set in tangled skein.
Anon he plungeth in despite the buffet of the waves
The while to sight the bellying net his eager glances strain;
Till joying at the night's success, a fish he bringeth home
Whose gullet by the hook of Fate was caught and cut in twain.
When buys that fish of him a man who spent the hours of night
Reckless of cold and wet and gloom in ease and comfort fain,
Laud to the Lord who gives to this, to that denies his wishes
And dooms one toil and catch the prey and other eat the fishes.
Payne: Third Night
There was once a poor fisherman, who was getting on in years and had a wife and three children; and it was his custom every day to cast his net four times and no more. One day he went out at the hour of noon and repaired to the sea-shore, where he set down his basket and tucked up his skirts and plunging into the sea, cast his net and waited till it had settled down in the water. Then he gathered the cords in his hand and found it heavy and pulled at it, but could not bring it up. So he carried the end of the cords ashore and drove in a stake, to which he made them fast. Then he stripped and diving round the net, tugged at it till he brought it ashore. Whereat he rejoiced and landing, put on his clothes; but when he came to examine the net, he found in it a dead ass; and the net was torn. When he saw this, he was vexed and said: 'There is no power and no virtue save in God the Most High, the Supreme! This is indeed strange luck!' And he repeated the following verses:
O thou that strivest in the gloom of darkness and distress, Cut short thine efforts, for in strife alone lies not success! Seest not the fisherman that seeks his living in the sea, Midmost the network of the stars that round about him press! Up to his midst he plunges in: the billows buffet him; But from the bellying net his eyes cease not in watchfulness; Till when, contented with his night, he carries home a fish, Whose throat the hand of Death hath slit with trident pitiless, Comes one who buys his prey of him, one who has passed the night, Safe from the cold, in all delight of peace and blessedness. Praise be to God who gives to this and cloth to that deny! Some fish, and others eat the fish caught with such toil and stress.
Husain Haddawy: The Eight Night
It is related that there was a very old fisherman who had a wife and three daughters andwho was so poor that they did not have even enough food for the day. It was this fisherman’s custom to cast his net four times a day. One day, while the mon was still up, he went out with his net at the call for the ealy morning prayer. He reached the outskirts of the city and come to the seashore. Then he set down his basket,roled up his shirt, and waded to his waist in the water. He cast his net and waited for it to sink; then he gathered the rope and started to pull. As he pulled little by little, he felt that the net was getting heavier until he was unable to pull any further. He climbed ashore, drove a stake into the ground, and tied the end of the rope into he stake. Then he took off his clothes, dove into the water, and went around the net, shaking it and tugging at it until he managed to pull it ashore. Feeling extremely happy, he put on his clothes and went back to the net. But when he opened it, he found inside a dead donkey, which had torn it apart. The fisherman felt sad and depressed and said to himself, “There is no power and no strength save in God, the Almighty, the Magnificent,” adding, “Indeed, this is a strange catch!” Then he began to recite the following verses:
O you who brave the danger in the dark,
Reduce your toil, for gain is not in work.
Look at the fisherman who labors at his trade,
As the stars in the night their orbits make,
And deeply wades into the raging sea,
Steadily gazing at the swelling net,
Till he returns, pleased with his nightly catch,
A fish whose mouth the hook of death has cut,
And sells it to a man who sleeps the night,
Safe from the cold and blessed with every wish.
Praised be the Lord who blesses and withholds:
This casts the net, but that one eats the fish.
Lang: Chapter V
Sire, there was once upon a time a fisherman so old and so poor that he could scarcely manage to support his wife and three children. He went every day to fish very early, and each day he made a rule not to throw his nets more than four times. He started out one morning by moonlight and came to the sea-shore. He undressed and threw his nets, and as he was drawing them towards the bank he felt a great weight. He though he had caught a large fish, and he felt very pleased. But a moment afterwards, seeing that instead of a fish he only had in his nets the carcase of an ass, he was much disappointed.
McCaughrean: Chapter V
The fisherman was well known hereabouts (said Shahrazad) though I forget his exact name. He used to be a familiar sight on the beach, throwing his net into the surf to catch bass and mullet. He was almost as old as he was poor, but his faith and trust in Allah comforted him.
Arriving at the sea shore and starting to work, he looked at the sky and said:
'O Allah who sends some days red with mullet and others silver with bass and still more black with mud, is it to be a day of the third kind? My net is caught on the bottom, Allah."
When he finally dragged the net ashore, he found nothing in it but a dead donkey.
Husain Haddawy, trans. The Arabian Nights. WW. Norton & Co. , 1990 (Everyman's Library, 1992.)
Robert Irwin. The Arabian Nights, A Companion. First published by Penguin Press, 1994. Reprinted in 2005 by Tauris Parke Paperbacks.
Geraldine McCaughrean. One Thousand and One Arabian Nights. Oxford University Press, 1982. (Good middle school student version.)
Some relevant content standards for 1001 Nights:
7th grade H/SS:
7.2 Students analyze the geographic, political, economic, religious, and social structures of the civilizations of Islam in the Middle Ages.
5. Describe the growth of cities and the establishment of trade routes among Asia, Africa, and Europe, the products and inventions that traveled along these routes (e.g., spices, textiles, paper, steel, new crops), and the role of merchants in Arab society.
6. Understand the intellectual exchanges among Muslim scholars of Eurasia and Africa and the contributions Muslim scholars made to later civilizations in the areas of science, geography, mathematics, philosophy, medicine, art, and literature.
7.8 Students analyze the origins, accomplishments, and geographic diffusion of the Renaissance.
4. Describe the growth and effects of new ways of disseminating information (e.g., the ability to manufacture paper, translation of the Bible into the vernacular, printing).
7.11 Students analyze political and economic change in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries (the Age of Exploration, the Enlightenment, and the Age of Reason).
2. Discuss the exchanges of plants, animals, technology, culture, and ideas among Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and the major economic and social effects on each continent.
Language Arts – grades 11,12.
Literary Response and Analysis
3.6 Analyze the way in which authors through the centuries have used archetypes drawn from myth and tradition in literature, film, political speeches, and religious writings (e.g., how the archetypes of banishment from an ideal world may be used to interpret Shakespeare's tragedy Macbeth).
ORIAS Working Groups are established to provide professional development support for K-11 and community college teachers with shared interests in international studies. The working groups provide teachers with the opportunity to extend their content knowledge by participating in seminars with University scholars; meeting with colleagues to share resources and experiences; and working independently or collaboratively on classroom materials with ORIAS staff.
Co-sponsored by the Office of Resources for International and Area Studies (ORIAS), the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, and the Center for South Asia Studies at U. C. Berkeley, and the Institute of East Asian Studies.
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