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Arabian Nights, or The Thousand and One Nights
published between 1704 and 1717, is arguably one of the
most influential texts of the 19th Century. First published
during the 18th Century, these imaginative tales were
enjoyed at the same time that reason ruled the Enlightenment
salons. The Arabian Nights became a major inspiration
for the writers of the English Gothic as well as other
Romantic writers from the Continent. The narrative frame
of the tales, in which Scheherazade stays alive by telling
one exiting story after another, seems to have spawned
a tradition of such unifying frames in the work of E.T.A.
Hoffman, C.J.L. Almqvist, and others.
The narrative frame is the story of a king who kills
his wives on the morning after the consummation of their
marriage in order to ensure their fidelity, until Scheherazade's
clever scheme. The tales are alleged to have derived
from Indian, Persian, and Arabic sources, especially
that of the lost Persian book of folktales, called Hazar
Afsanah.[A Thousand Tales], which was translated into
Arabic circa 850 c.e. Some scholars doubt there Arabic/Persian
origins and attribute, at least in part, the stories
to the collector Antoine Galland (1646-1715).
S. Mellor
S. Brantly |
