The Thousand and One Nights in English
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tr -\r Identity in Diversity: The Thousand and One Nights in English E. K. Sallis Thesis presented for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of English, University of Adelaide South Australia August 1996 Table of Contents Chapter 1: Introduction to the Nights 7 Clrapter 2: Arabic Textual History of the AIf layla walayla 24 Chapter 3: English Translation of the Thousnd and One Nights 57 Clrapter 4: Reading tll.e Arabian Nights 87 Chapter 5: SheherazadelShahrazãd:.a Commentary on the Frame Tale 115 Chapter 6: Readings of Selected Stories and Anecdotes 746 Hãrun al-I{ashid and the Arab Girl The Pious Black Slave 'Aziz and'Aziza 'Abdallah the Fisherman and "Abdallah the Merman Ma?üf the Cobbler Afterword 796 Appendix 198 Bibliography 799 Primary Texts 200 Secondary Texts: The Thousand and One Nights 201 Secondary Texts: General 227 List of Abbreviations EI(2) The Encydopaedia of Islam (second edition) lA Journal Asíatique IAL Journal oÍ Arabic Literature JNES Journal of Ne:.r Eastern Studies IAOS Journal of the Ameriæn Oriental Society IRAS Journal of the Royal Asiatíc hciety JSS Journal of Semitic Studies UMES International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies ZD}'IIG Zeitschrift d er Deut schen Mor genl an d i sch en G esell schaft ZER Zotenberg' s Egyptian Recension E. K. Sallis "Identity in Diversity: the Thousand and One Nights in English" Thesis Sumrnary The Thousand and One Nights is a very large family of texts which has rolled like a snowball through many centuries and several cultures. This thesis explores various levels of the diversity of the Nights, ranging from the vestiges of its lost past, through the extant and printed Arabic versions, and beyond to the European reception. Each manifestation of the text participates now in what we perceive .the text to be. Any given text today is either unsatisfactory and incomplete, or is redolent with the influence of its Arabic or European double and its past versions. The greatest demarcation is between the Arabic and the European texts but increasingly the two must be seen in the light of each other - they influence, renew and redefine each other across the cultural divide. A significant part of the Nights identity is its diversity. The aim of this thesis is to celebrate the diversity of the text through a general look at its textual history and manifestations, and, having established this base, to explore the implications of reading the Nights anew/ particularly in the light of a compound textual identity and a culturally hybrid nature. The English translations, particularly that of |ohn Payne, are singled out frorn this diversity as practical samples for the discussion and the readings. Chapter one introduces some of the general elements of the Nights textual history and complexity, and some of the problems this presents for readers past and present. Chapter two explores the Arabic textual history and its implications in some detail, looking at both the extinct and extant versions. The last section discusses the main printed editions and the conflict generated by their differences. Chapter three engages with the European appropriation and reception of the Nights limiting the discussion to the English translations. Chapter four focusses on the problems past and present in reading the culturally hybrid text. Both reader stances of the past and the possibilities for readers in the present are explored. Chapter five is a close reading of the frame tale, discussing in detail past potent misreadings and the effect of an appropriative textual history on the story. The reading offered is intended to criticise readings of the past and to open up the potential of fresh approaches. Chapter six offers a sample set of text based readings of five tales, divested of preconceived notions of what the Nlghts is or should be. Acknowledgements: This thesis could not have been completed without the generous assistance of the British Council who funded a research attachment with the Department of Middle Eastern Studieq University of Manchester. A substantial part of chapter five is forthcoming in the Journal of Arabic Literature, entitled " Sheherazade/ Shahrazàd: Rereading the Frame Tale of the 1001 Nightt'. A substantial part of chapter three was presented as a paper entitled " English Translation of the AIf layla wa-layla" at the Thirteenth International C-onference of Language, Literature, Linguistics and Translation held at the Yarmouk University in lrbid, Jordan, April 7996. The University of Adelaide and the Australian Federation of University Women generously supported and provided funding for various components of this project. I wish to thank my supervisors Philip Waldron and Michael Tolley of the University of Adelaide, and Professor G. Rex Smith who supervised -y studies in the University of Manchester. I also wish to thank Amal Abou- Hamdan, Samer Akkach, Rosemary Greentree, James E. Montgomery, Minerva Nasser-Eddine, Maria Nichterlein, Abdallah Osman, Amaia de la Quintana, Jack Ross, Roger Sallis, Teresita White and the teachers at the Yemen Language Center. Special thanks also to Alan Keig, the staff of interlibrary loans in the Barr Smith, the staff of the John Rylands, and Sherry and Helen of the Studio. Spanish sources were translated for me by Amaia de la Quintana Note on Transliteration The symbols used for the transliteration of Arabic in this thesis are those of the Encydopaedia of Islam (second edition), Volume VII|, with the exception that di has been modernised to7, Ktoq. The system used aims at clarity: case endings except for an indefinite accusative indicated in the Arabic text have been left off. Verbs, however, are transliterated in full. In general, words which have a familiar form in English (such as "c-aliph',) retain that form. However, as exceptions, Qur"ãn is transliterated, and "genie" is changed to jinnl, jinniyya, or jinn in order to distinguish the masculine, feminine and plural forms. " Sheherazade" is spelled in the European way as a reflection of the composite nature of the Nights present day identity. I am very grateful to Professor James E. Montgomery for providing me with Arabic transliteration fonts, and to Dr Samer Akkach and Amal Abou- Hamdan for kindly reading through my transliterations and translations. I am, however, solely responsible for any errors. 1 Clrapter 7: Introduction to the Nights The Thousand and One Nights was secular literature, historically not approved by the cultured literary class as literature at all. It existed as a popular entertainment and much of it expresses the desires, wishes and experiences of a middle to lower class urban and mercantile peop1e.1 It evolved, arguably as a response or r~ction to a rigid social and spiritual structure, and satisfies a need similar to that which generates carnival and carnivalesque inversions in popular cultures.2 However, all of this is what it was, once. What it is now is infinitely more complex because it was relx>rn into an alien environment in 1704/11163, an environment in which its signs were received in a radica11y different way from their accepted meanings in their culture of birth. Not only were most referents unknown but the signs themselves took on a reference unique to them, a reference to a general system of imaginative perception in which one of the essential components was mystery and a sense of being cut loose from meaning. When we develop a new approach and apply it to a work of literature, we thereby modify the past, and we change the work itself. 4 The work exists and persists as an identity by same kind of agreement between word and reader, between sign and interpretation. This is a very fluid concept of identity and, with this in mind, it is clear that works of literature change as people and cultures who read them change. This thesis will explore the 1stories reflect the values, adventures, beliefs and roncerns of Muslim traders of the middle ages - even Harun al-Rashid's oourt is really an imaginary court made up of merchants (al Qalamawi 139; Gerhardt, Story-telJing 190). 2Noted by Feria! Ghazoul (The Arabian Nights 128), quoting Bakhtin. Asma Agzenay argues that "the 'Thousand and One Nights' was the privileged space of carnivalesque and anti authoritarian disrourses" (227). 3Christian and Hegira dates are given throughout with the Hegira date to the right. 4 An idea explored in detail by T. 5. Eliot in "Tradition and the Individual Talent" (The Sacred Wood 47-59). 3 Nights with reference to this view of literature, for the Nights has a history distinguished by transformation. This thesis approaches the text with affirmation of its fundamental heterogeneity, for the text comes to us through a multitude of manuscripts, printed editions in Arabic and very diverse translations. Understanding the issues which surround translation is essential. Extraordinary translations such as the early English translations of the Nights represent a process of translation which is more accurately called appropriation. Within the framework of this process, the romplexities of the reader-text relationship are unusually prominent; the culturally alien reader offers something different from the regular relationship of text and reader. The Nights was traditionally read in particular ways and in Europe fostered an indulgence in the experience of the exotic Other and various aspects of Orientalism.5 The last two chapters of this thesis wil1 be devoted to exploring specific stories of the Nights as literature of their own unique genre, bearing in mind their history of transformation and transcultural reinterpretation. The Arabic text exists in several different versions, was written down at an indeterminate time, was orally transmitted or created over many centuries and bears the mark of many authors and scribes, many ages, many cities and the fictionalised traces of many peoples, ranging from a nomadic pre-islamic world to the mercantile sophisticated world of the great trade and cultural centres.