Media:
Availability:
Available to listen.
Last broadcast on Thu, 18 Oct 2007, 21:30 on BBC Radio 4 (see all broadcasts).
Synopsis
Melvyn Bragg discusses the myths, tales and legends of the Arabian Nights.
Once upon a time a wealthy merchant grew hot in the sun and sat down under a tree. Having eaten a date, he threw aside the stone, and immediately there appeared before him a Genie of enormous height who, holding a drawn sword in his hand, approached him, and said, “rise that I may kill thee”.
This is from The Arabian Nights, a collection of miraculous tales including Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves and Sinbad the Sailor. Forged in the medieval Arab world, it became so popular in Europe that the 18th century Gothic writer Horace Walpole declared “Read Sinbad the Sailor’s Voyages and you will grow sick of Aeneas”.
Its origins are Indian and Persian but it was championed initially by an 18th century Frenchman, Antoine Galland. Celebrated for its fabulous stories, it is a patchwork of sex, violence, magic, adventure, and cruelty – a far cry from the children’s book that it has become.
With Robert Irwin, Senior Research Associate at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London; Marina Warner, Professor in the Department of Literature, Film and Theatre Studies at the University of Essex; Gerard van Gelder, Laudian Professor of Arabic at the University of Oxford.
Further Reading
Peter L. Caracciolo (ed.), The Arabian Nights in English Literature: Studies in the Reception of The Thousand and One Nights into British Culture, (Macmillan, London, 1988)
John Clute and John Grant (eds.), The Encyclopedia of Fantasy, (Orbit, London, 1997)
Hasan M. El-Shamy, A Motif Index of The Thousand and One Nights, (Indiana University Press, Bloomington, Indiana, 2006)
Husain Haddawy (tr.), The Arabian Nights, (Everyman’s Library Classics, London, 1992)
Robert Irwin, The Arabian Nights: A Companion, 2nd edition (I.B. Tauris, London and New York, 2004)
Robert Irwin, The Penguin Anthology of Classical Arabic Literature, (Penguin, London, 2006)
Ulric Marzolph and Richard van Leeuwen (eds.), The Arabian Nights Encyclopedia, 2 vols. (ABC Clio, Santa Barbara, California, 2004)
Mia I. Gerhardt, The Art of Story-Telling: A literary study of the Thousand and One Nights, (Leiden: Brill, 1963)
David Pinault, Story-Telling Techniques in the Arabian Nights, (Leiden: Brill, 1992)
Wen-chin Ouyang & Geert Jan van Gelder (eds), New Perspectives on Arabian Nights: Ideological Variations and Narrative Horizons, (London: Routledge, 2005)
Ulrich Marzolph (ed.), The Arabian Nights in Transnational Perspective, (Detroit, Michigan: Wayne State University Press, 2007)
Ulrich Marzolph (ed.), The Arabian Nights Reader, (Detroit, Michigan: Wayne State University Press, 2007)
.
Eva Sallis, Sheherazade Through the Looking Glass: The Metamorphosis of the Thousand and One Nights, (Richmond: Curzon, 1999)
Richard van Leeuwen, The Thousand and One Nights: Space, Travel and Transformation, (London: Routledge, 2007)
Voltaire, Candide and Other Stories (1759-1777), ed. and trans. Roger Pearson (London: Penguin Classic, 2006)
William Beckford, Vathek (1786), ed. Roger Lonsdale (Oxford: Oxford World's Classic, 1998)
Salman Rushdie, Haroun and the Sea of Stories (London: Puffin Books, 1990)
And the first full length animated film:
Lotte Reiniger, The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926), BFI DVD with booklet, 2001
Broadcasts
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Thu 18 Oct 200709:00
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Thu 18 Oct 200721:30
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