A Victorian Arabian Nights Adventure: a Study in Intertextuality
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Loyola University Chicago Loyola eCommons Dissertations Theses and Dissertations 1988 A Victorian Arabian Nights Adventure: A Study in Intertextuality Nancy Victoria Workman Loyola University Chicago Follow this and additional works at: https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Workman, Nancy Victoria, "A Victorian Arabian Nights Adventure: A Study in Intertextuality" (1988). Dissertations. 2663. https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss/2663 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses and Dissertations at Loyola eCommons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Loyola eCommons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. Copyright © 1988 Nancy Victoria Workman A VICTORIAN ARABIAN NIGHTS ADVENTURE: A STUDY IN INTERTEXTUALITY by Nancy Victoria Workman A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Loyola University of Chicago in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy August 1988 copyright 1988 Nancy V. Workman ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to thank my director, Dr. Frank Fennell, for his assistance during this project. I also wish to thank my other readers, Drs. Micael Clarke and Joyce Wexler, for their help. They all offered encouragement and interest, even as they read additional drafts and alternate versions. It is only through their efforts that I did not succeed in imitating Scheherazade's perpetual narrative too faithfully. For financial assistance, I wish to thank the Kosciuszko Foundation which awarded me a grant for 1985- 1986. I wish to thank the Arthur Schmitt Foundation for a dissertation fellowship for the 1986-1987 term. In addition, I wish to thank the chairman of the English Department, James E. Rocks, for providing me with summer employment. Their generosity has allowed me to pursue my studies without interruption. For assistance of another sort, I wish to thank Lorna Newman of the Interlibrary Loan Department at Loyola's Cudahy Library. Not only was she able to locate rare books for me unfailingly, but she drew my attention to other ii critical works, even before they were generally available. I also wish to thank Dr. Christine Alexander of the University of New south Wales, Australia, for making available to me a then-unpublished manuscript of Charlotte Bronte which she was editing. Although I do not cite this work in the revised chapter, I did use the material to confirm my own thesis regarding Bronte•s juvenilia. For providing me with citations and notes about readings I might use, I wish to thank Margaret Brunnelle, Mary Jo Bona, Joan Kaufman Mullin, and Patti Lorimer Lundberg. I have saved all their postcards and envelopes, as souvenirs to their generosity. For editorial assistance, as well as their supportive friendship, I wish to thank my colleagues Ann Boswell and Mary Filkins, who took time away from their own studies to remind me about the informality of dashes and the horror of dangling modifiers. For emotional support and constant interest, despite the very different nature of their own lives, I wish to thank my friends carol Murray and Jura Jancys who sustained me by their laughter and common sense. Most importantly, however, I wish to thank my family for tolerating long absences away from them as I lived in the computer center and library. I dedicate this work to Gaylord and Sandy who have shared my Arabian Nights fantasy for the last three years. They have truly been the genii who provided the magic that kept my world intact. iii PREFACE Throughout this dissertation I shall refer to Edward William Lane's translation (1838-1840} of the Arabian Nights unless otherwise noted. First, it is the version that was read by most of the Victorians whom I shall discuss. See the discussions on Christina Rossetti, William Morris and George Meredith. (It is very probable that Charles Dickens and Charlotte Bronte relied on "Grub Street" versions of the tales based on Antoine Galland's eighteenth-century French translation, but these are impossible to locate.) Second, it is generally regarded as a "scholarly translation" although it is incomplete and somewhat censorious in the treatment of sexual matters (Gerhardt 74-76; Ali Scheherazade 93-94). Third, Lane's elaborate notes to the collection influenced the Victorian perception of the East because he changed the romantic image to one that was more "realistic" in its portrayal of medieval Arabic society. Lane's translation is also difficult to obtain, and it is generally regarded as a rare book. However, microfilm copies of the original edited by his nephew are available and are noted in the bibliography. For convenience, I shall indicate the pagination from the 1927 reprint of Lane's translation which is generally available. iv VITA The author, Nancy Victoria Workman, is the daughter of Stanley Steve Wojcik and Helen (Siwek) Wojcik. She was born on April 18, 1947, in Chicago, Illinois. Her elementary education was obtained at st. Joseph's Grammar School, Summit, Illinois. Her secondary education was completed at Lourdes High School, Chicago, Illinois. She entered the University of Illinois at Chicago in September, 1965, and graduated with a Bachelor's Degree in English in December, 1968. After completing teaching certification requirements, she began part-time graduate work at the University of Illinois at Chicago and graduated with a Masters Degree in English in 1974. Between 1971 and 1975, she taught secondary school English at Holy Family Academy, Chicago, Illinois. In addition to her teaching duties, she served as department chair. In 1971, she married Gaylord Edward Workman. Between 1975 and 1978, she taught at Queen of Peace High School, Burbank, Illinois. There she served as department co-chair, yearbook co-moderator, and elected delegate to the V curriculum council. In December, 1978, her daughter, Cassandra Lin, was born. In 1981 and 1982, she worked as a Financial Aid counselor at the Illinois Institute of Technology. There she administered the College Work Study Program. Between 1982- 1986, she was awarded teaching assistantships at Loyola University of Chicago. In 1985-1986, she was awarded a grant from the Kosciuszko Foundation, a fraternal organization for persons of Polish ancestry. In 1985, she also won first prize in the Stanley Clayes literary criticism competition for her essay on Roland Barthes• S/Z. In 1986-1987, she was awarded the Arthur J. Schmitt Fellowship, enabling her to complete her dissertation. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS . • . • . ii PREFACE. • . • . i V VITA................................................. V Chapter I. THE VICTORIAN ARABIAN NIGHTS................. 1 Introduction............................. 1 Premises and Methodology................. 5 The Text and Its Themes.................. 18 The Selection Process and Overview....... 44 II. SCROOGE ALLUDES TO ALI BABA................. 50 Synecdoche............................... 57 Inversion................................ 74 Assimilation............................. 80 III. IMAGINING THE WORD: THE USE OF SOURCES...... 89 Christina Rossetti and "The Dead city" History. 9 5 Source Texts........................... 96 The Presences in "The Dead City"....... 100 The Absences in "The Dead City"........ 104 Intertextuality........................ 115 William Morris and "The Man Who Never Laughed Again" History. 117 Source Text........................... 119 The Presences in "Never Laughed". 122 The Absences in "Never Laughed"....... 134 Intertextuality....................... 142 IV. THE USE OF SUBTEXTS........................... 145 The Juvenilia of Charlotte Bronte and Her Genii The Juvenilia............... ......•... 152 vii Intertextuality....................... 161 The Continual Presence................ 170 The Subtext of Scheherazade in Jane Eyre The Rochester/ Sultan Shahriyar Correspondences •••...•.................. 174 The Jane Eyre/ Scheherazade Correspondences .•....••..........•...... 179 Jane·Eyre and Imagination ..••....••..... 187 V. THE ART OF IMITATION: THE SHAVING OF SHAGPAT .• 199 A True Imitation Verbal Patterns and Allusions ••......•.. 206 Sens·uality............................ 212 Noorna.................................. 218 Analogous Relationships Embedded Elements .•..................... 223 Shagpat's Meaning .•.••....••........... 230 VI. ROLLING UP THE MAGIC CARPET ................... 243 Intertextuality............................. 244 The Use of the Arabian Nights •.•............ 248 APPENDIX. • • . • . • . • . 2 52 A SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY............................. 259 viii CHAPTER ONE THE VICTORIAN ARABIAN NIGHTS O my sister, relate to us a story to beguile the waking hour of our night. Most willingly, answered Shahrazad, if this virtuous King permit me. And the King, hearing these words, and being restless, was pleased with the idea of listening to the story; and thus, on the first night of the thousand and one, Shahrazad commenced her recitations. The Arabian Nights (Edward William Lane 10) In 1839, Leigh Hunt said that the Arabian Nights was "the most popular book in the world." A few years later, George Henry Lewes said of it, "fQr the last fifty years few persons, making any pretensions to a taste for reading, have left unread these interesting volumes," and he referred to it as the "Iliad of romance" (Ali Scheherazade 42). In